According to a new survey of more than 4,000 undergraduates at 10 community colleges across the nation, half of all community college students are struggling with food and/or housing insecurity. Fully 20 percent are hungry and 13 percent are homeless. These numbers are startling and indicate the need for a multi-pronged, comprehensive set of institutional, state, and local policies to alleviate the barriers presented by poverty, so as to improve educational success.
“Look to your left and look to your right. The odds are one of you is not going to graduate.”
Many of us who attended college in years past will recall receiving some such an admonition from a professor or adviser. The message was simple: our job is to give you an opportunity; your job is to take advantage of it. If you don’t, oh, well.
This paper examines the policies surrounding international students and international education from the perspective of college students in Ontario. The goal of this paper is to inform the discussion on the federal, provincial, and institutional policies surrounding international students as they pursue Ontario credentials and international education in general. International student currently represent about 10% of the overall college population. Their experiences are different from typical college students’, in part because international students undergo a different process of applying to an Ontario college. Furthermore, these students typically come from cultures that are different than that of Ontario, and may have difficulties in adapting to the way of life and the stresses associated with being an international student. It is important to make sure there are supports in place to address the differing needs these students have as they study in Ontario.
This white paper was developed through the collaboration of a dedicated advisory team of community college practitioners and assessment industry experts who worked diligently through meetings, email correspondence, and conference calls to develop the philosophy, content, and structure of the Assessment Framework for the Community College. Questionmark Corporation committed resources to the project to draft the paper, facilitate meetings of the advisory team, and produce the final copy. The paper is labeled version 1.0, indicating that the framework will continue to evolve as educators apply its concepts and principles and identify ways in which to improve and expand its focus.
In May 2004 the Adult Education Review was launched at the request of the Minister of Education and the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities. The goal of the review was to propose a policy framework for adult education and recommend actions that would not only support but also improve adult education in Ontario.
Introduction
“ We are looking at replacing the legacy of the residential schools with a vibrant new learning culture in every First Nation, grounded in our proud heritage, identity and language. Through a new confidence, we can resume our rightful place as proud Nations walking side-by-side with the Canadian federation and within the North American economy. “To get there, we need to work with every university and college, with school boards, corporations, and foundations and indeed all people in Canada... But with trust, we can and will achieve great success – uniquely Canadian success grounded in the true history and real potential of this land.”
Post-Secondary Education in Ontario: Managing Challenges in an Age of Austerity January 2013
The following Post-Secondary Student Support Program (PSSSP) and University and College Entrance
Preparation Program (UCEPP) National Program Guidelines will be in effect as of April 1, 2015.
These program guidelines include program and eligibility information. Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) regional offices may provide additional detail for the delivery of the programs and their services.
According to data released by Statistics Canada in 2014, the years of 2000 - 2010 have seen significant increases in large and private debt among graduating students, and skyrocketing private debt among graduates with doctoral degrees. Although the
percentage of graduates in debt appears to be decreasing overall in this decade, this is both because of the introduction of the Canada Student Grants Program (which turns a portion of student loans into non-repayable grants) and because enrollment growth has outpaced increases in student loan borrowing. Even so, those who are borrowing are taking on much higher debts,and increasingly from private sources.
The Strategic Mandate Agreement (SMA) exercise was intended to address at least three desired
outcomes:
1. To promote the government’s stated goal1 of increasing the differentiation of the Ontario
postsecondary system by asking each Ontario postsecondary institution to articulate an
institutional mandate statement identifying its distinctive strengths or aspirations and to
identify key objectives aligned with that aspiration.
2. To advance and inform the discussion about how the Ontario system could increase its
productivity to deliver a quality education to more students within the financial constraints
expected in the public sector.2
3. To elicit the best thinking from institutions about innovations and reforms that would support
higher quality learning and, in its most ambitious form, transform Ontario’s public
postsecondary system.
Given the ongoing alarm regarding uncontrollable costs of higher education, it would be reasonable to expect not only concern about the impact of MOOCs on educational outcomes, but also systematic efforts to document the resources expended on their development and delivery. However, there is little publicly available information on MOOC costs that is based on rigorous analysis. In this article, we first address what institutional resources are required for the development and delivery of MOOCs, based on interviews conducted with 83 administrators, faculty members, researchers, and other actors in the MOOC space. Subsequently, we use the ingredients method to present cost analyses of MOOC production and delivery at four institutions. We find costs ranging from $38,980 to $325,330 per MOOC, and costs per completer of $74-$272, substantially lower than costs per completer of regular online courses, by merit of scalability. Based on this metric, MOOCs appear more cost-effective than online courses, but we recommend judging MOOCs by impact on learning and caution that they may only be cost-effective for the most self-motivated learners. By demonstrating the methods of cost analysis as applied to MOOCs, we hope that future assessments of the value of MOOCs will combine both cost information and effectiveness data to yield cost-effectiveness ratios that can be compared with the cost-effectiveness of alternative modes of education delivery. Such information will help decision-makers in higher education make rational decisions regarding the most productive use of limited educational resources, to the benefit of both learners and taxpayers.
In this commentary, I reflect on the value of qualitative research methodology classes. As I show in my discussion of the classes I teach, what students learn from the class is not solely a methodological approach to inquiry, but a different (and for many, a new) way to ask questions, and as I suggest, to see the world anew.
An exclusive CBC News investigation has revealed that more than 700 sexual assaults were reported to Canadian universities and colleges over the past five years. The investigation also discovered that the numbers vary widely from school to school, even when adjusted for population.
Ontario students are supportive of the provincial government’s recent decision to create an Ontario Online Institute. This endeavour could significantly advance access, especially for traditionally underrepresented groups facing financial, physical, social, cultural, and geographic barriers which prevent them from attending a traditional post-secondary institution. Moreover, such an Institute could provide increased flexibility for the thousands of current students looking to blend online learning with an in-class education.
Academic work is often solitary, but succeeding in the professoriate arguably requires social acumen. So is that why gay men and women are disproportionately represented among academics? A new study investigating the phenomenon of “occupational segregation” argues that certain jobs -- including that of professor -- are particularly appealing to gay men and lesbians for these reasons.
When she began her doctorate in social psychology at the University of British Columbia, Ashley Whillans knew that she wanted to study workplace happiness – or, more specifically, the benefits of time off versus more money in
relation to job satisfaction. She also wanted her work to have a real-world impact. To that end she began to wonder: what if, rather than seeking out the usual crowd of undergraduates as research subjects, she could collect data from
actual workplaces and in exchange she’d offer them her findings?
Change seems to be the new constant regarding our country’s educational systems – at every level. Major changes in K-12 are, in part, a result of the new Common Core, which is intended to eliminate the need for developmental education. The standards of the new Common Core are excellent and seem to align with and exceed the “college-ready indicators” assessed on current college placement tests. However, developmental education is not going away anytime soon.
The Ontario Ministry of Education and Training’s Task Force on University Accountability first proposed key performance indicators (KPIs) for colleges and universities in Ontario in the early 1990s. The three main KPIs for Ontario universities are the rates of (1) graduation, (2) employment, and (3) Ontario Student Assistance Program loan default. This exploratory and descriptive study examined the perceptions of 12 key informants from 11 participating universities about the efficacy and effectiveness of these KPIs. The results of this study demonstrate that a clear majority of participants believe these KPIs
are not having the intended impact. This paper analyzes the evidence and makes recommendations designed to foster efficient collaboration between stakeholders; it also asks all parties to clarify their goals, agreed expectations, and requirements, in order to develop effective measures of institutional performance and accountability and address the political needs of the government, the universities, and the public.
As I write this, the 42nd Parliament has not yet begun sitting and yet the impacts of the new government continue to reverberate.The steady string of announcements since the election appears almost designed specifically to please the university community. Academics – and researchers more generally – seem particularly heartened by the change in tone from the, let’s just say, churlishness of the previous regime.
The new cabinet, sworn in on Nov. 4, includes not just a Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, but also a Minister of Science, full stop. The day after the swearing in, the new Minister of Science, Kirsty Duncan, tweeted: “Looking forward to restoring science to its rightful place in government!”
The policy debate at Mount St. Mary's University has from the start involved more than President Simon Newman's comparison of at-risk students to bunnies that should be drowned or killed with a Glock. Faculty members and the provost (whom Newman has since demoted) objected to plans to give all freshmen a survey and then to use the survey to identify new students who might -- in their first weeks in college -- be encouraged to quit before Mount St. Mary's would have to report them as having been enrolled and thus dropping out. The theory behind the plan was to increase the university's retention rate.