By Julia Lawrence. Students looking to calculate the cost of college might be giving up private information without even knowing it, according to AlterNet. Worse, it could be colleges themselves who are complicit in this kind of privacy breach because they fail to notify students that the use of these kinds of data collection tools could result in their data being repackaged and sold to outside vendors.
Many students consider price calculators to be a good consumer information tools that provide them with a reliable estimate of the total price of attendance for a particular school — but to arrive at that estimate, the calculators ask for a large amount of personal and financial data.
Schools don’t provide these calculators voluntarily. They are required to do so by a requirement put into place during the reauthorization of the 2008 Higher Education Act. Read more...

PARENTS and all stakeholders concerned about Australia's poor education standards will applaud NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli's move to draw future teachers from the top 10 per cent of school leavers. Given the importance of early literacy and numeracy teaching, it makes sense that those entering primary teaching score at least 90 per cent in Higher School Certificate English and maths. And those teaching complex secondary subjects should, as Mr Piccoli suggests, score at least 90 per cent in the HSC in their areas of specialty.
Other states should follow suit. If Mr Piccoli's initiative is to achieve a much-needed lift in education performance, however, primary teaching courses must be reviewed and reformed to ensure that trainee teachers are instructed in the most effective systems for teaching reading. This includes synthetic phonics - teaching children to relate letters to sounds and to blend sounds into words. Mr Piccoli, who will take over as chairman of the ministerial council of federal, state and territory education ministers in the new year, will be well-placed to drive the education reform agenda. Read more...

My story should give universities pause when considering international partnerships by Douglas H. Parker.
It’s difficult to read any document these days that pertains to postsecondary education in Canada without finding some reference to the importance of internationalization. China has been a strong postsecondary market for Canada for years. More recently, Canadian universities have turned their attention to India. Like China, but even more so, India has a capacity problem. There are simply not enough universities in India for the huge number of students who are interested in pursuing undergraduate education. Nor will India be able to create enough of these institutions on its own soil for years, if ever.
My own experience teaching in India, although entirely personal and individual and the result of teaching at only one institution, leads me to conclude that there are several concerns that Canadian universities might need to be aware of before jumping feet first into what at first blush might seem to be a potential money-spinner and attractive market, ripe for the picking. Read more...

By Martin Cash. Year-end surveys by business organizations this year seem to indicate there is solid optimism business will pick up in 2013.
But the expectations employers have about hiring more workers seem to be tempered by their ongoing concerns about finding the right skilled people to fill the positions.
It's not a new issue and it is not specific to Manitoba.
But it's very complex and has been a nagging feature of this provincial economy for a long time. So the provincial throne speech announcement that a Skills Summit would be held at the end of February has been roundly applauded as a good idea.
It is to be co-chaired by Stephanie Forsyth, president and CEO of Red River College and Kevin Rebeck, president of the Manitoba Federation of Labour.
Janine Carmichael, the Manitoba director of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) said she's really pleased the skills shortage is getting such attention. Read more...

By Melonie Fullick. While for most people the holidays are a time to relax, in academic life the winter break is used by many professors and graduate students as “catch-up time.” For those of us in PhD programs, this often means focusing on overdue course papers or on dissertation work, which – ironically – often drops to the bottom of the list when we’re juggling so many different commitments during the term.
As a doctoral candidate currently working on my dissertation, I’ve seen many cases where students “fell behind” or left their programs for various reasons. I also have an interest in this issue because the topic of my research is the university itself, and how it’s governed. The PhD model, in Canada and elsewhere, has traditionally been an “elite” one. It’s based on the idea that very few people will go to graduate school, and that those who do will have plenty of preparation and support for it.
Throughout my time in graduate school, I’ve found that this model is built on outdated assumptions about the context of graduate education and the kind of person who pursues a PhD. For example, there’s the idea that students will have available four to six years during which little or nothing else will be going on in their lives, and that they’ll be free from commitments that take time away from academic work. As more people enter PhD programs, more of them are likely to come from different contexts that don’t fit with this model, yet policies often treat students’ everyday circumstances as “exceptions.” Read more...

By Emma Graney. As school divisions and post-secondary institutions scramble to cater to the increasing number of students looking toward the skilled trades and natural resources sectors, the provincial government has its own plan.
It has poured $3.5 billion into post-secondary education since 2008 and, says Advanced Education Minster Don Morgan, the Saskatchewan Party will continue to focus on health sciences and "areas of economic growth."
Put simply, that's the natural resources sector, which has brought billions of dollars into the province in recent years, and it's the related academic courses that will benefit.
"That's certainly the direction we're going," Morgan says. It's all outlined in the Saskatchewan Plan for Growth, which details the government's roadmap for getting to 2020 and 1.2 million residents. Read more...

Why are programs with names like “Team builders” only for business students? by Peg Tittle. While reading about our university’s participation in Students in Free Enterprise, or SIFE (recently renamed Enactus), it occured to me to wonder why such an endeavour is undertaken only by business students. The program is described as one in which “leaders in business and higher education to mobilize university students to make a difference in their communities while developing the skills to become socially responsible business leaders” (from Wikipedia).
Consider the projects listed below – and then imagine the alternatives:
“Team Builders” led team-building exercises during a weekend program at the YMCA. Imagine if sociology students tried team-building. I think it might be quite different than the exercises undertaken by business students.
“Junior Tycoons” were high school students presented with a basic business plan. Why not present “Junior Diplomats” with a plan for redesigning recess, based on insights from political science, history, and psychology?
“Budgeting for Mental Health Patients.” How about "Philosophy for Mental Health Patients"?
Enactus projects, which train students to apply their knowledge outside academia and also increase the visibility of business in the outside world, probably contribute to the strangle-hold that business activities and business interests have on the world. Read more...

By Rosa Silverman. White working class boys are so under-represented at universities that they may need to be treated like ethnic minorities when it comes to recruiting students, a government minister has suggested. The number of boys applying to university courses has fallen dramatically and more must be done to ensure they sign up, David Willetts argued. The universities minister said there was no reason why white working class boys should not be targeted in the same way as other disadvantaged groups by the Office for Fair Access (Offa).
The university access watchdog "can look at a range of disadvantaged groups – social class and ethnicity, for instance – when it comes to access agreements, so I don't see why they couldn't look at white, working-class boys," he said.
The minister plans to discuss the issue of making white working class boys a target group for recruitment in university access agreements with Professor Les Ebdon, the director of Offa. Universities have to sign the agreements to receive permission to charge higher fees. Read more...

By Andrew Marszal. There are many alternative, and often cheaper, routes into work for school leavers who don't have a degree – just ask the 20-year-old IT entrepreneur with 27 GCSEs. With the January UCAS application deadline looming, teenagers across the country have spent the Christmas break worrying more about how to get into university than what they will get out of it.
But university is far from the only option for school leavers. There are plenty of alternative – and cheaper – qualifications and routes into work for those unsure about academia, or put off by debts of up to £27,000 for a three-year degree.
And, contrary to the stereotypes often associated with non-traditional qualifications, many young people exploring these options boast impressive academic credentials. Read more...

By Graeme Paton. The number of university applications has slumped by 18,000 in 12 months as a hike in tuition fees puts British students off degree courses for the second year running.
Figures show that demand for higher education is down by 6.3 per cent amid a continuing backlash over fees of up to £9,000-a-year.It emerged that 265,730 British students had applied for university places by mid-December – the lowest number since the data was first collated in 2008/9.
The figures – published by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service – relate to courses starting in autumn this year and are likely to reignite the debate over higher fees.
Overall, numbers are down by more than 41,000 – 13 per cent – compared with two years ago before the introduction of the new student finance regime.
Today, universities insisted it was too early in the academic year to draw firm conclusions from the data, suggesting that up to four-in-10 students were yet to lodge applications. Read more...