College of the North Atlantic news release:
Officials at College of the North Atlantic (CNA) are crediting innovative recruiting methods for a 10.5 per cent increase in enrolment for 2010/11.
College President Bruce Hollett says 7,373 students have registered for classes this fall, an increase of more than 700 students over last year.
From the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Education:
The Provincial Government is undertaking a survey to evaluate the experiences of registered apprentices in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Honourable Darin King, Minister of Education, announced today that the survey will begin later this fall and includes all registered apprentices in the province . . . All registered apprentices in the province will be contacted by telephone to voluntarily answer a questionnaire covering areas such as training, on-the-job experience and current employment, as well as questions specific to the experience of women in apprenticeship.
The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) has released a report which says that the Ontario government should base new funding for universities on whether they meet measurable goals.
HEQCO argues that this would result in a higher quality post-secondary system with a greater degree of differentiation. It notes that the path to greater differentiation in Ontario’s university sector should be guided by:
The full report, The Benefits of Greater Differentiation of Ontario's University Sector, is available here in .pdf format.
- Equal value on the teaching and research functions of universities
- Forging a contemporary relationship between Ontario’s colleges and universities
- Linking the differentiation policy to funding decisions
- More effective use of multi‐year accountability agreements and performance indicators to evaluate whether universities are meeting expected goals and targets
Having worked in the area of college-university collaborative programs for a number of years with the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities, I have a keen interest in inter-institutional and inter-sectoral collaboration in post-secondary education.
In fact, since my early retirement from the Ontario Public Service, I have authored and co-authored a number of peer-reviewed articles on the subject. At present, I am working with one of our Faculty's PhD students who is researching this area in preparation for his comprehensive exams.
Last week, the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission released a related report on the subject of articulated college-university degree programs in the Maritimes. The report defines these as "programs that could not be conferred or offered by universities were it not for the participation (and the content) of the partner institution which does not normally grant degrees (e.g. colleges, hospitals, and private providers)."
The report concludes that inter-sectoral articulated programs are "effective as long as the proper mechanisms are in place to ensure program integration and a smooth transition between institutions". The report also notes that student persistence in and satisfaction with these programs are associated with the field of study, program structure, geographic proximity between institutions, and inter-institutional coordination.
Download the full report, Assessment of the Effectiveness and Benefits of Articulated Programs in the Maritimes, here in .pdf format.
There have been major developments in higher education in England these past two weeks. Last week, the report of the Browne review of university funding caused quite a stir, and it continues to do so. This week, the announcement of the British government's Comprehensive Spending Review has sent shock-waves across the higher education community.
The Browne review has recommended that the current £3,290 cap on tuition fees in England be eliminated, with universities independently setting fee levels. Under the proposed system, as noted by The Guardian, "institutions charging more than £6,000 should have to pay a rising percentage of each additional £1,000 as a levy to government. This would mean a university that charges £7,000 would receive 94% of the fee, while one charging £10,000 would receive 81%." While the current Higher Education minister has called this plan "neither sustainable nor sensible", it looks like England's university tuition fees will rise substantially in the coming years.
As noted by Academica's Top Ten this morning, the British government's Comprehensive Spending Review has unveiled a whopping 40% cut in higher education spending over 4 years. This will see the budget for higher education excluding research reduced from £7.1bn at present to £4.2bn by 2014-15. In a letter published in today's Guardian newspaper, a group of distinguished academics refers to the planned cuts as "a disaster for higher education, culture and the economy".
Reports of two studies released this week by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) highlight the widening earnings differential between post-secondary graduates and those with lower levels of educational attainment.
The analysis in one of the reports, titled Postsecondary Education and the Labour Market in Ontario, indicates that Ontario’s college and university graduates have an earnings advantage of almost 25% over high school graduates.
The citations/links for the reports are as follows:
Drewes, T. (2010). Postsecondary education and the labour market in Ontario. Toronto: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. Retrieved from: http://www.heqco.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/FINAL%20Drewes%20ENG.pdf
Walters, D., & Frank, K. (2010). Exploring the alignment between postsecondary education programs and labour market outcomes in Ontario. Toronto: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. Retrieved from: http://www.heqco.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/FINAL%20Walters%20Frank%20ENG.pdf
The Association of Atlantic Universities (AAU) has reported that enrollments at Atlantic Canada’s universities are up once again this year. Compared to last year, full-time undergraduate enrollment has increased by 2.2% while full-time graduate student enrollment is up by 5.4%. Contributing to these upward tends is a 15.2% increase in international student enrollment. At Memorial University of Newfoundland, the 2.2% increase in overall enrollment mirrors the Atlantic-wide trend. MUN's undergraduate numbers are up by 0.6% while graduate student enrollment has increased by 10.3%.
I have blogged about the gender gap in education a number of times over the past few years. The Saturday edition of The Globe and Mail takes up the issue anew, noting that "a hill of data suggests that boys, as a group, rank behind girls by nearly every measure of scholastic achievement". On the post-secondary education front, the Globe article also points out:
While men and women are enrolling in university in record numbers, the proportion of women attending is significantly higher. Men make up just 40 per cent of university undergraduates, and they’re much less likely than women to graduate from the college or degree program they start.The article quotes Paula Bourne, who is with the Centre for Women's Studes in Education at the University of Toronto, as saying that "It’s hard to argue that boys are being short-changed" and that the issue of boys struggling in school is "overemphasized".
As reported by the BBC News:
Universities in England should be able to charge unlimited fees, a major review of university funding has recommended.
Lord Browne's review calls for the £3,290 cap on fees, which students borrow in loans, to be scrapped.
Instead it proposes a free market in fees - setting out models of charges up to £12,000 a year for a degree course.
The UCU lecturers' union said the plan was "the final nail in the coffin for affordable higher education".
However, Lord Browne's review makes clear that universities that charge more than £6,000 a year would lose a proportion of the fee to help cover the cost of student borrowing.
Last April, College of the North Atlantic president Jean Madill tendered her resignation after fewer than 3 years on the job. The matter precipitating her resignation involved over $5 million in alleged overpayments to employees at the College's campus in Qatar and related overbillings to the State of Qatar.
In an effort to clear the air on the matter, Newfoundland and Labrador's minister of education held a news conference today to discuss the findings of the provincial government's review of employee compensation at the campus and the associated overbillings. The review concluded that the errors were the result of a combination of factors including:
Released today by BMO Bank of Montreal:
The majority of Canadian university and college students (81 per cent) agree it’s important to have a budget to manage finances during the school year, but 6 out of 10 did not prepare one before heading off to school, according to a new survey from BMO Bank of Montreal.
The report, conducted by Leger Marketing, was done with students during the month of September as they adjusted to the reality of a new school year. The report also found:
- 40 per cent of students are concerned they will not have enough money to cover the remainder of the school year
- 63 per cent of those concerned plan to cut spending, while only 1 in 3 said they would start a budget
- The majority of those with a budget say they have needed to make revisions since school started
Since June 2008, I have had the pleasure of serving on the supervisory committee for Kate Ross' Doctor of Education program at Simon Fraser University. The oral thesis defence took place today and the now Dr. Ross, who is SFU's registrar, successfully completed this final requirement for her EdD degree.
Here is the abstract for Dr. Ross' doctoral thesis, titled The Effect of Institutional Merit-Based Aid on Student Aspirations, Choice and Participation: A Mixed Methods Approach:
This study sought to determine the effect of institutional merit-based aid on student aspirations, choice, and participation at a large Canadian comprehensive urban university. The present research combined two theoretical frameworks: Hossler and Gallagher's (1987) college choice and Perna's (2006) situated context. Drawing on these frameworks, an on-line web survey, including both forced-choice and open-ended questions, was developed for this study. The survey was distributed to all domestic direct-entry students who received an offer of merit-based aid for the Fall 2009 term. Using parallel mixed methods, analysis, this study used descriptive and inferential statistics, and thematic analysis.
There were multiple combinations of factors that affected who accepted or did not accept a scholarship offer. Nearly 80% of the respondents indicated their parents encouraged them to do well in hopes of receiving a scholarship offer. Respondents that came from families where at least one parent was a non-immigrant were more likely to accept the scholarship offer. This finding indicates that while the institution has a strong prestige reputation locally, there may be a greater preference amongst the immigrant population to choose an institution that is perceived to have a greater reputation.
The leading indicator of acceptance of offer was admission to first choice institution. Other significant aspects were: program, proximity, cost of attendance, amount, and institutional reputation. The type (automatic/applied) and level (amount) of the scholarship were typically secondary factors in shaping the decision of where to attend.
Forty three percent of respondents who accepted the scholarship offer were first generation university students and 15% of those who accepted were also first generation post-secondary (college or university) students. Neighbourhood before-tax median family income was $64,000 for all respondents; 51% of those who accepted the scholarship offer had incomes at or below the median. While in the US, merit-based student financial aid is often criticized as a regressive policy that amplifies disparities in wealth and education, further research should examine the potential underlying causes of the contrary findings in this study.
Next week, from October 12-15, Memorial University of Newfoundland is hosting an international conference on the use of technology in K-12 and post-secondary education.
The agenda for e-Learning: The Horizon and Beyond includes a panel session on academic blogging and tweeting where Dr. Michael Barbour (Wayne State University), Dr. Mark Bullen (British Columbia Institute of Technology), Dr. Mary Stordy (Memorial University of Newfoundland) and I will discuss how we make use of such tools in our work.
This week, Dr. Michael Barbour is posting a number of entries on his Virtual School Meanderings blog which address questions about how blogs and tweeting may be utilized in teaching and research.
In response to the recent report on the university system in Nova Scotia, Chris Ferns, president of the Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers, writes in today's Halifax Chronicle Herald:
The report’s author, Tim O’Neill, proposes to deregulate tuition fees, arguing that the resulting increases would not impede access for students. O’Neill appears oblivious to how 20 years of fee hikes in the province have already resulted in unacceptably high increases in student debt, leaving students and their families with fewer choices.
In the most recent poll jointly commissioned by the Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers, the Nova Scotia Government Employees Union, and the Canadian Federation of Students, roughly one-third of the respondents indicated that either they or an immediate family member had either been deterred from entering university by the cost, or forced to drop out as a result.
If Dr. O’Neill believes that tuition fee levels have no impact on access, he need look no further than Newfoundland for evidence to the contrary.
There, significant reductions in tuition fees have led not only to increased enrolments, but to a sharp increase in the number of students from Nova Scotia going there in search of an affordable education.
