This paper provides a brief review of what is involved in achieving whole school reform on a large scale. There have been two shifts in the last decade that are directly relevant to this question. One has been the issue of how to go deeper to achieve substantial reform that is powerful enough to impact student learning in even the most difficult circumstances. The other is how simultaneously to go wider to achieve reform on a large scale.
Mental health is a growing concern for all Canadians. To date, it is estimated that approximately 20% of Canadians will experience some sort of mental illness in their lifetime1. It also remains a pressing issue for students across Canadian campuses as institutions continue to signal a rise in the number of mental health cases.
Most graduate students and postdocs know they should give serious thought to their next career steps, but they aren’t sure how to navigate the career exploration process. After all, for those with doctoral training, there are a dizzying array of possible career “destinations” both inside and outside academe. Collecting information about even a few of those options can quickly become overwhelming and hard to sustain along with your current job.
International graduates of Canadian universities are “the perfect candidates” for citizenship, says immigration
minister
Canadian-educated international students are exactly the sort of would-be immigrants this country should be courting, the federal government has said as it moves on election promises to make immigration policy friendlier to international graduates of Canadian postsecondary institutions.
The government’s first step came in late February when it introduced legislation repealing changes made under the previous Conservative government’s controversial Bill C-24 of 2015. Although the Conservatives had made adjustments over time that generally made immigration policy more favourable to international students, Bill C-24, enforced in their last year in office, made it harder for international graduates of Canadian postsecondary programs to qualify for citizenship.
Digital Talent: Road to 2020 and Beyond is Canada’s first national digital talent strategy. It highlights the opportunities and challenges facing Canada’s digital economy and underscores the importance of digital talent as one of the most critical advantages for Canada in a global economy. The strategy is aimed at ensuring that Canadians are well prepared to succeed as skilled workers and entrepreneurs in this fast pace econo y, as well paving the way for greater participation as consumers and citizens in an increasingly digital world.
• Fewer than one in five PhD graduates are employed as full-time university professors. The majority of PhDs are employed outside academia in a wide range of rewarding careers—such as in industry, government, and not-for- profit organizations.
• Many PhD graduates face challenging initial transitions to careers outside academia due to underdeveloped professional skills and networks, difficulty articulating the value of the skills gained through PhD studies to non-academic employers, and limited employer awareness or misperceptions about the potential value of PhD hires.
International students have increasingly become an important part of postsecondary education in Canada. The number of international students has risen 84% between 2003 and 2013, and most precipitously since Canada introduced the
Canadian Experience Class as part of its new immigration policy changes.1 A report published by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (Williams, K., Williams, G., Arbuckle, A., Walton, Roberts, M., & Hennebry, J., 2015) describes the political
and economic climate, as well as the policy changes over that time period. These changes have allowed for an increase in the number of international students being admitted into Canada’s post-secondary institutions by streamlining application
processes and revising policies regulating off-campus work and post-graduation work permits. Students from India and China have had greater ease in accessing Canadian post-secondary education with the introduction of the Student Partners
Program (SPP) in 2009, though financial restrictions have become a potential barrier to access.2 With these changes, according to Williams et al., Ontario has become the primary destination for international students in Canada. This is especially
true at Ontario colleges. “Ontario-bound international students show a growing tendency to study in the college sector, with over 50% of new entrants attending a college in 2012” (Williams et al., 2015). Despite this trend, the discussion on student
characteristics does not distinguish between the two sectors.
This paper presents the findings based on case studies of the educational systems of England and of the Canadian province of Ontario, as part of a research project funded by the Thomas J. Alexander Fellowship Programme.1 This research project aims to provide inputs to policymakers and school leaders, especially in Latin America, to support teachers and schools with student behaviour issues and improve classroom and school climate. The purpose of these case studies is to investigate how
system-level policies in four main areas (initial teacher education, professional development, professional collaboration and participation among stakeholders) and other types of system-level initiatives (such as student behaviour policies) have been implemented in order to improve disciplinary climate and help teachers to deal with student behaviour issues. It also aims to
identify the conditions in which teaching and classroom practices take place, in order to understand the context of student behaviour and disciplinary climate in these educational systems.
A 1975 research article by Vincent Tinto,“Dropout from Higher Education: A Theoretical Synthesis of Recent Research,” spurred more than twenty-five years of dialogue on student retention and persistence in higher education. Though it has been attacked by some and re- vised by Tinto himself, his work has remained the dominant sociological theory of how students navigate through our postsecondary system.
More than a quarter century later, the issues of student retention and persistence are as pertinent as they were when Tinto first published his student integration model. In the 1970s and 1980s, public policy was focused primarily on access, with federal and state legislation aimed at reducing barriers to higher education. By the mid-1990s, the discussion moved from access to issues of choice, affordability, and persistence. Although gaining entry to col- lege is still a dramatic accomplishment for some, persisting to degree is what really matters in the postcollege world. Unfulfilled academic goals often result in unfulfilled career realities:
lower pay, less security, fewer opportunities, and dreams deferred—if not abandoned.
This report examines skill trends in 24 OECD countries over the past several decades. The skill measures used include broad occupation groups, country-specific direct measures of skill requirements from international surveys, and direct skill measures from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database applied to both United States and European labour force surveys. Each kind of data has its own strengths and limitations but they tell a consistent story.
Technology is gradually replacing cursive instruction—but have we taken stock of what we’re losing?
Should cursive writing still be taught in our schools? The old debate is back with a vengeance as schools shift resources from the intricate, painstakingly rendered script to keyboard skills.
This paper explores the potential of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), to provide new insights into community service-learning (CSL) in higher education.While CSL literature acknowledges the influences of John Dewey and Paolo Freire, discussion of the potential contribution of cultural-historical activity theory, rooted in the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, is noticeably absent. This paper addresses this gap by examining four assumptions associated with activity theory: the rejection of a theory/practice divide, the development of knowledge as a social collaborative activity, the focus on contradictions
in and across activity systems, and the interventionist approach aimed at transformation.
This short document presents a synthesis of the main findings emerging from the six case studies aimed at identifying the characteristics of innovative North-South university partnerships conducted by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) in 2012. It includes an overview of the purpose of the study and details on how it was conducted, including a refresher on the analytical framework utilized to design the data collection and analysis tools. The last section presents a summary of the findings emerging from the study and some recommendations addressed to the funders of these partnerships, participating universities and faculty members as well as possible next steps.
York University is partnering with the Government of Ontario to conduct leading-edge research with the potential to transform educational programming and inform targeted approaches to addressing the needs of students. This research will take the form of a feasibility study into collecting additional province-wide data to further inform understanding of student populations and school communities, as well as address the principles outlined in the Ontario Ministry of Education’s Achieving Excellence: A Renewed Vision for Education in Ontario.
The world has more graduates than ever before. In an era of mass expansion, the proportion of the population with
degrees is at a historical high across many nations, both developed and developing. The world also has more
newspaper and magazine articles, thinktank reports and academic papers than ever before questioning the value of
that expansion.
In recent years, policymakers have been driven by a human capital theory approach to higher education expansion:
their belief has been that as graduate numbers are grown, individual graduates with higher skill levels will boost
national productivity and be rewarded with an “earnings premium”. And universities have been happy to expand to
meet the demand for places on the basis that governments foot the bill, either through grants or student loans.
There is no formal mandate for or tradition of inter-sectoral collaboration between community colleges and universities in Ontario. Follow- ing a regulatory change introduced by the College of Nurses of Ontario in 1998, all Registered Nurse educational preparation was restructured to the baccalaureate degree level through province-wide adoption of a college-university collaborative nursing program model. Despite complex sectoral differences in organizational culture, mandates, and governance structures, this program model was promoted by nursing educators and policy-makers as an innovative approach to utilizing the post-secondary system’s existing nursing education infrastructure and resources. This paper provides an overview
of the introduction of Ontario’s collaborative baccalaureate nursing programs and discusses some of challenges associated with implementing and maintaining such programs.
En Ontario, il n’y a pas de mandat offi ciel ni de tradition de collaboration intersectorielle entre les collèges communautaires et les universités. À la suite d’une modifi cation réglementaire apportée par l’Ordre des infi rmières et infi rmiers de l’Ontario en 1998, toute la formation pédagogique de niveau baccalauréat du personnel infi rmier a été restructurée par l’adoption à la grandeur de la province d’un modèle de programme de formation en sciences infirmières offert conjointement par les collèges et les universités. En dépit de différences complexes entre ces deux secteurs aux plans de la culture organisationnelle, des mandats et des structures de gouvernance, les enseignants en soins infirmiers et les décideurs ont fait la promotion de ce modèle de pro- gramme en tant qu’approche novatrice pour utiliser l’infrastructure et les ressources de formation en sciences infirmières déjà en place dans le réseau postsecondaire. Cet article offre un aperçu de l’introduction des programmes ontariens de baccalauréat conjoint en sciences infir- mières et examine quelques-uns des obstacles associés à la mise en œuvre et au maintien de ces programmes.
Social networking sites (SNSs) have gained substantial popularity among youth in recent years. However, the
relationship between the use of these Web-based platforms and mental health problems in children and adolescents
is unclear. This study investigated the association between time spent on SNSs and unmet need for mental health support, poor self-rated mental health, and reports of psychological distress and suicidal ideation in a representative sample of middle and high school children in Ottawa, Canada. Data for this study were based on 753 students (55% female; Mage = 14.1 years) in grades 7–12 derived from the 2013 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the associations between mental health variables and time spent using SNSs. Overall, 25.2% of students reported using SNSs for more than 2 hours every day, 54.3% reported using SNSs for 2 hours or less every day, and 20.5% reported infrequent or no use of SNSs. Students who reported unmet need for mental health support were more likely to report using
SNSs for more than 2 hours every day than those with no identified unmet need for mental health support. Daily SNS use of more than 2 hours was also independently associated with poor self-rating of mental health and experiences of high levels of psychological distress and suicidal ideation. The findings suggest that students with poor mental health may be greater users of SNSs. These results indicate an opportunity to enhance the presence of health service providers on SNSs in order to provide support to youth.
Many countries strive to make postsecondary education maximally accessible to their citizens under the assumption that educated citizens boost innovation and leadership, resulting in social and economic benefits. However, attempts to increase access, especially in contexts of stagnant or diminishing financial support, can result in ever-increasing class sizes. Two aspects of large classes are extremely worrisome. First, economic and logistical constraints have led many such classes to devolve into settings characterized by lectures, readings and multiple-choice tests, thereby denying students experience and exercise with important transferable skills (e.g., critical thought, creative thought, self-reflective thought, expressive and receptive communication). Second, such classes are depicted as cold and impersonal, with little sense of community among students.
It is a fundamental responsibility and obligation of government and of institutional leaders to assure that postsecondary institutions are sustainable and capable of providing a high quality academic experience.
This paper offers a conceptual framework for examining the sustainability of Ontario’s public postsecondary institutions. It discusses the definition of the term “sustainability,” how it can be measured and the various tools and strategies available to both institutions and government to meet sustainability risks when they are identified.
This article focuses on high school to university transitions for Indigenous youth at universities in British Columbia, Canada. The study is premised on an Indigenous research design, which utilizes the concept of visioning and a storywork methodology (Archibald, 2008). The results challenge existing in-stitutional and psychological approaches to transitions in revealing that they are deeply impacted by a variety of lived experiences and that a visioning process is vital to Indigenous youths’ participation in university. The paper concludes with implications for practitioners working in educational and Ab-original community-based settings.