From The Montreal Gazette:
An end to the controversial and long-standing freeze on tuition rates at Quebec universities is on the horizon.
But how much more students will fork over for their university education as of 2012 isn’t clear yet.
Finance Minister Raymond Bachand did not flesh out details, but said a consultation will be held in the fall to determine the terms of the increase.
It looks like today's provincial budget in Québec could spell the end of an era for low tuition fees in that province. Here is the relevant section of the Québec Budget Speech:
Our universities must compare favourably with the world’s best institutions. To fully play their role, they must have the necessary resources. To that end, I am announcing that our government will raise university tuition fees as of fall 2012.
To flesh out the details of the increase, my colleague, the Minister of Education, Recreation and Sports, will undertake on a process culminating in a meeting of education partners next fall. The meeting will deal with the performance and efficiency of the university network in the areas of teaching, research and management.
It will also be an opportunity to discuss the resources—from the standpoint of amounts, and funding sources and methods—to be devoted to university instruction. The quality of teaching and research, as well as access to university studies, will be central to the talks. Universities must undertake to implement plans to improve the quality of services provided to students and eliminate accumulated deficits.
Representatives of Canadian Council on Learning are meeting with Members of Parliament and Senators today to discuss the state of lifelong learning in Canada.
While Canada is doing well in many areas associated with lifelong learning, there is plenty of room for improvement. For the post-secondary sector specifically, the Council recommends the following:
From today's Toronto Star:
[I]mmigrant professionals in Ontario are still finding it nearly impossible to crack through regulatory barriers and find jobs in the fields for which they were trained and for which they were accepted into Canada.This study was carried out in Ontario but the identified professional barriers for internationally trained individuals are common across Canada.
It's so bad that 1 in 10 has simply given up trying to get a professional licence, a groundbreaking study done by the province's Office of the Fairness Commissioner shows.
Skilled immigrants earn less than half, on average, of what their Canadian-educated counterparts earn.
Only one in four manages to obtain a licence in one of Ontario's 37 regulated professions, compared with 60 per cent of Canadian grads. And that licence may take two years to get, compared with less than a year for native-born Canadians.
Here's some of the post-secondary education spending highlights from the 2010 Budget in Newfoundland and Labrador:
From The Toronto Star:
In a move students are calling a “huge step forward,” Queen’s Park will keep its 5 per cent limit on post-secondary fee hikes for two more years, and beef up student aid to more than 188,000 students.
The announcement Monday morning by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities tackles many student concerns by raising the weekly loan limit for a single student to $150 a week from $140 a week and more than doubling the amount of money – to $103 from $50 – that students may earn each week without being penalized on their student loan.
The move delays for at least two more years any dramatic surge in tuition some had feared might kick in when the current five-year tuition cap expired this spring.
In this interview, provided by the Global University Network for Innovation, Gwang-Jo Kim, Director of UNESCO Bangkok, explains some of the challenges that higher education is facing in the Asia-Pacific region and the role of UNESCO in the development of higher education in the region.
According to this news report from the CBC's Lynne Robson, the Canadian Federation of Students is "facing a revolt from within". As Yogi Berra once put it, it's like deja vu all over again.
From The StarPhoenix:
Post-secondary students across the province will face increased tuition rates next year based on Wednesday's provincial budget.
. . .
Student leaders see the moderate increase to the operating budget as a short-term fix to rising tuitions, after the Saskatchewan Party government lifted a five-year freeze that had been imposed by the previous NDP government.
. . .
Stoicheff said undergraduate students will pay $100 to $200 more in tuition each year on average, but year after year this level of increase is "unsustainable."
Last year, students at the U of S faced an average three per cent tuition increase, with law and pharmacy students paying 7.5 per cent more and engineering and business students paying four per cent more.
From The Edmonton Journal
As the University of Alberta climbed the world rankings, it also became one of the most expensive universities to run in Canada, with a budget for central administration of more than $100 million.
Today, the board of governors will likely be asked to pass a smaller budget than last year, one that is expected to include $20 million more revenue from students in the form of new $550 mandatory fees.
According to one researcher, if the university would simply bring central administration expenses in line with the average of Canada's top 13 research universities, it would save $23 million.
I am appearing before the Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science, and Technology in Ottawa today to discuss the issue of access to post-secondary education for Canadians in rural and isolated communities. The meeting will take place at 10:30 a.m. in Room 2 of the Victoria Building (140 Wellington St.). The meeting will be webcast live and recorded. It will also be broadcast on CPAC at some point.
Last year's Manitoba Budget boosted base operating grants to colleges and universities in that province by 6%. It also included an announcement that university tuition and ancillary fees would be allowed to increase by up to 4.5%. Community college tuition fees were allowed to increase by $100.
The 2010 Manitoba Budget, announced yesterday, will provide post-secondary institutions with a 4.5% operating grant increase. Also, university fees will be permitted to increase by a further 5%, which works out to about $175 for undergraduates taking a full course load. College fees will be allowed to rise by another $150.
Yesterday's budget announcement noted that, despite these recent increases, tuition fees in Manitoba are still below 1999 levels and are the third-lowest in Canada.
As I noted earlier, India’s cabinet has approved legislation that would permit foreign universities to establish campuses and offer degrees in the country.
The plan has yet to be approved by the Indian Parliament but it has touched off a political debate on the merits and drawbacks of the move. The clip below is an NDTV India report on the issue (runs 21 minutes, 17 seconds):
Each Winter Semester I have the pleasure of teaching Education 4730: Educational Programs and Practices in Industry and Labour. The following mention of women in skilled trades occupations from today's Speech from the Throne in Newfoundland and Labrador will be of particular interest for students in that class:
Three years ago, My Government released the report of the Skills Task Force it commissioned to prepare for labour force needs and opportunities associated with large-scale development projects on the horizon. Having acted early, it is more prepared than ever to ensure our province and people capture the opportunities these projects provide. This year, My Government will take further action to implement improvements for apprentices. To advance the participation of women in nontraditional trades, My Government will continue to work with industry partners to develop and support implementation of effective women’s employment and business access strategies for large-scale resource development projects. My Government will also continue to support apprenticeship initiatives to strengthen women’s access to training and employment in the growing sectors of our economy.
From Reuters:
he Democratic-led House of Representatives on Sunday approved President Barack Obama's bid to implement what would be the biggest overhaul in decades of the federal student loan program.
Under the legislation, federal subsidies to private student loan lenders would stop and the government's role in lending would increase -- creating billions of dollars in projected savings that would go largely in grants to needy students.
The measure, opposed by private lenders and critics of an expanding federal government, was included in a package of proposed changes to an overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system.
As reported by The National Post:
Before right-wing U.S. pundit Ann Coulter even set a stilettoed foot on this side of the border for a trio of speaking engagements this week, she managed to make a few Canadians nervous.
Ms. Coulter catapulted to international notoriety two days after the 9/11 attacks with a column in the National Review in which she advocated conquering Muslim countries and converting the people to Christianity. But as the columnist prepares to visit Canada this week to speak at three universities, a senior University of Ottawa administrator has warned her to use "restraint, respect and consideration" when speaking at the school.
Francois Houle, vice-president academic and provost, advises Ms. Coulter, who holds a law degree, to review Canada's hate speech and defamation laws before giving her talk at the university.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=2710026#ixzz0iuC0PPSG
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==> A proposal from the Association of Atlantic Universities to increase the numbers of international and out-of-region students at Atlantic universities popped up on the Chronicle of Higher Education news ticker yesterday.
==> While Australia has been a world leader in attracting out-of-country students, it has received a black eye as a result of a spate of violence and racism directed at foreign post-secondary students studying there. To complicate matters, the head of a review of Australia's multi-billion dollar international education sector has recently alleged that about 20% of the country's vocational colleges are not much more than "permanent residency factories".
==> On St. Patrick's Day, Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen launched an initiative to attract the offspring of Irish emigrants to study in Ireland. The Ireland Homecoming Study Programme will make spaces at post-secondary institutions in the Republic available to descendants of the Irish diaspora at a reduced cost.
==> With the recent announcement that the government of Ontario intends to establish an "Ontario Online Institute", educators and academics in that province are once again debating the merits of on-line learning.
From The Guardian:
More than three-quarters of universities in England are to have their budgets cut for this September – some by nearly 14%, triggering warnings of larger class sizes, further job cuts and a deterioration in the quality of courses.
The universities of Oxford and Cambridge are among 99 institutions that will be forced to cope with reduced state funding for the next academic year, as colleges prepare for the harshest financial climate in more than a decade.
Universities have not witnessed cuts on this scale since 1997, the government agency in charge of distributing public money to them – the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) – admitted yesterday.
The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) has released a new report on vocational education and training (VET) in Europe.
The report covers some of the most important issues, trends, and challenges for vocational education and training research, practice, and policy common to Canada including:
End post-secondary funding to band councils? A proposal from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a right-wing think-tank, suggests the federal government create a post-secondary education savings account for each Aboriginal child at birth rather than relying on individual band councils to distribute $314-million in PSE funding annually.
Debt relief for service? While visiting St. John's yesterday, federal Liberal party leader Michael Ignatieff suggested that his party would be open to providing some form of student debt relief in exchange for public service. No other details were given but it sounds like an interesting proposal.
An idea whose time has come? In a letter to the Edmonton Journal, a couple of retired U of A professors have proposed that the university reorganize its activities to a trimester academic year with three equal 13-week periods. They make a sound argument that I tend to agree with.
This is still Canada right? In a speech on Saturday, former journalist turned Conservative party Senator and spokesperson Mike Duffy derided Canadian journalism schools for exposing students to critical thinking. The horror, the horror!
BBC News story:
India's government has approved a plan to allow foreign universities to set up campuses and offer degrees in India.
The proposal, which needs to be ratified by parliament, is expected to benefit thousands of Indian students who head abroad to study.
India is reforming its higher education system after concerns that it faces a shortfall of qualified graduates.
This story was making the rounds on the weekend:
Canada's largest research-funding organization has slapped an extraordinary ban on a star scientist who is accused of "plagiarism" and spending up to $150,000 in government grant money on custom car parts, televisions, home entertainment systems and other equipment "inconsistent" with his research proposals.
Officials at the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council say they have barred the scientist from funding "indefinitely." They will not name him.
This coming June, the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum will be hosting a national apprenticeship conference in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. The full program for the conference, billed as Apprenticeship: The Framework for Canada’s Renewable Resource, is on-line here. Note that the deadline for the "early bird" conference fee rate is March 19
The Canadian Apprenticeship Forum has also just announced the publication of the first issue of the Canadian Apprenticeship Journal. The journal is intended to share research and stimulate discussion within the apprenticeship community. The focus of the inaugural issue, which can can be accessed on-line here, is "return on training investment".
CTV News story:
Students and staff from Canada's only Aboriginal university are pleading with the federal government to restore funding, saying the school will run out of money by the end of the month if something doesn't change.
In February, Ottawa announced it would not renew about $7 million in funding to the First Nations University of Canada because of governance and finance concerns at the Regina-based institution. The Saskatchewan government had cut $5.2 million in funding the previous week.
Over on his Margin Notes blog, University Affairs deputy editor Léo Charbonneau provides an overview of two reports released this week by the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations and the Canadian Federation of Students. It's worth a read.
From The New York Times:
Obama’s plan would end a program in which the government pays private, for-profit student lending companies to make risk-free loans using taxpayer money. Instead, the proposed overhaul would broaden the government’s existing direct-lending program, saving billions of dollars that the president had proposed using to expand Pell grant scholarships for low-income students.
But the education bill is strongly opposed by some Senate Democrats, particularly those in states where for-profit student lenders are major employers. In a letter to the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, six Democrats said they disliked the president’s proposal.
As reported by The Edmonton Journal:
A campus newspaper article that referred to the "brown guy in this election" and labelled one candidate the "love interest in a Bollywood blockbuster" has upset some students at the University of Alberta.
It didn't help that, on election night, all five winners making up the next Student Council executive were young, Caucasian males.
. . .
The comments ran in the March 4 election-day edition in an annual humour piece criticizing each candidate's election posters. Other candidates were criticized for looking so young their mother would have to drive them to meetings, or had "the most pinchable face."
The panel mocked Sangram Hansra, candidate for the Board of Governors representative, saying if elected "someone's going to ring a gong at the next BofG meeting, and everyone will burst into song and dance."
From Agence France-Presse:
Austrian and French student networks called on Monday for a strike in European universities this week, when ministers from 44 countries will gather to discuss higher education reforms.
Reseau Europe, the network that launched the initiative, criticised the 'creeping privatisation' of universities through the so-called Bologna Process on reforms.
'In the name of 'competitiveness,' these reforms oblige universities to resort to private funding and to increase tuition fees,' the network said in a statement. 'They deepen inequalities by condemning more and more students to huge debt, thus discouraging those less affluent from studying,' it added.
The Bologna Process was set up in 1999 to harmonise higher education in 46 European countries and facilitate mobility across the continent for students and academics.
On Thursday and Friday, education ministers were to meet in Budapest and Vienna to discuss progress on the reforms, on the 10th anniversary of the process.
Ahead of the ministerial conference, students from 38 countries were also organising a counter-summit in the Austrian capital until Wednesday, to voice their views, which they say have not been taken into account in the Bologna process.
In its Speech from the Throne yesterday, the government of Ontario unveiled its 5-year Open Ontario Plan which includes a major focus on post-secondary education. The ambitious plan includes:
A recently released publication from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Learning Our Lesson: Review of Quality Teaching in Higher Education, explores the interplay between actors within educational institutions, organizational structure, commitment of senior leadership, involvement of faculty and students, and evaluation instruments in order to find ways of improving the quality of teaching.
Leaders and academics can improve the quality of higher education teaching, and thereby the quality of their graduates, by reflecting on institution-wide practices. This book explores the interplay between actors within institutions, organisational structure, commitment of senior leadership, involvement of faculty and students, and evaluation instruments.Learn more about this publication here.
Based on an OECD review of 46 quality teaching initiatives in 20 countries, the report highlights the significant impact of the institutions’ environment, trends in the quality of academia, teaching methods and learning conditions. The sample represents 29 higher education institutions, from technological and vocational institutions to business and economic schools, from small undergraduate institutions to multidisciplinary postgraduate universities.
Research carried out by faculty at the University of Waterloo has found that graduates of co-operative education programs earn higher salaries and get more prestigious jobs. From the Kitchener Waterloo Record:
The three-phase study, the first and largest of its kind, examines the role of co-operative education in the transition from post-secondary education to the labour market. It poses the question: Does co-op make a difference when students move or transition to the labour market?
The study concludes that co-op students earn the highest salaries and get the most prestigious jobs after graduation compared with their non co-op peers.
Using data collected by Statistics Canada in its Youth in Transition Survey, researchers tracked close to 10,000 students (with more than 500 in co-op) over a six-year period from their high school days (in 2000) through their campus careers and early years in the work force (in 2006).
The study compared university co-op students with regular (non co-op) university students, as well as college co-op students with regular college students.
Yesterday the Conservative government delivered its fifth budget since coming to power in 2006.
As usual, some groups are outraged about it and some groups are thrilled about it. Alex Usher was so bored last night, he wrote an entire report about it.
There's not much new spending to speak of in the budget but here are a few of the measures that are relevant to post-secondary education:
Over the past year, reports from a number of sectors have warned of an impending skilled worker shortage as the Canadian economy emerges from recession. According to media reports, Thursday's federal budget will include investments aimed at addressing these concerns. Today's Toronto Star includes the following preview:
The federal government will unveil a new economic agenda for Canada aimed at getting the country's 1.5 million unemployed back to work, with billions of dollars in investments to spur creation of cutting-edge jobs in the knowledge-based economy.
. . .
Under the heading of "creating the economy of tomorrow," the government will earmark several billion dollars to support graduate students, spark research and development projects and improve labs at colleges and universities.
In addition, there will be several billion dollars in 2010 to cover employment insurance payments to the country's 1.5 million jobless. The money will also cover support for apprenticeships, training for the unemployed, youth employment schemes and improved recognition of immigrants' professional qualifications.
In a move that will likely have a negative impact on graduate student recruitment and impair the work of faculty members, Memorial University of Newfoundland reportedly plans to freeze funding for new graduate students beginning in the fall 2010 semester due to a budget deficit.
This development is inopportune for two reasons.
First, Memorial University's Strategic Plan calls for an increase in the proportion of graduate students from 13% to 20% of the total student population. This is especially important in light of the projected decline in the 17 to 29 year-old population in Newfoundland and Labrador. Eliminating funding for graduate students is highly unlikely to assist the university in achieving this planned expansion of enrollment.
Second, at the moment, Memorial University is in the midst of developing a Research Plan to guide the institution's future research, creative activity, and scholarship. As the background document for the research planning exercise notes "Graduate students represent a fundamental driver of university research activity" and "a greater number of graduate students – people earning their master’s degrees or PhDs – is a vital element of expanded research activity". Enough said.
Eliminating the funding that attracts talented graduate students to Memorial is evidently a poor direction to choose, but the university has limited options. For example, external funding provided indirectly to students via competitive research grants awarded to faculty members is neither sufficient nor reliably sustainable over the long term.
Increasing graduate student tuition fees, which have been frozen at Memorial since 1999, will be unpopular with students for obvious reasons. It may also be an avenue of least resort for the university which has integrated tuition affordability into graduate program marketing.
This leaves the province, which the university relies on for the vast majority of its current funding. A combination needs-based bursary and competitive scholarship program is a strategically important possibility that the provincial government should consider funding as a partial solution.
The competitive funding component of a new provincial program for graduate student funding could be modeled along the lines of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) Program which complements rather than duplicates funding available to graduate students from the major federal sources. The OGS provides founding for up to 2 years to masters students and up to 4 years for doctoral students, and the awards are worth up to $15,000 per year.
In this interview, provided by the Global University Network for Innovation, Carl Lindberg, member of the UNESCO High-Level Panel on Education of Sustainable Development (ESD) and Special Advisor to the Swedish National Commission for UNESCO on ESD, discusses the role of post-secondary institutions in sustainable development.
From The Canadian Press:
A scholarship and bursary program has been established in the memory of the 17 victims of the crash of Cougar Flight 491 off Newfoundland last year.
Officials with companies that serve the province's offshore oil sector announced the establishment of the Flight 491 Legacy Fund today. Brian Henley, president of the Alec G. Henley Group, says . . . $900,000 has been raised so far, with the goal of raising $600,000 more in the coming months.
The program is for students at Newfoundland's Memorial University and the College of the North Atlantic.
