By . The economic and fiscal history of Canada from the early 70s to the mid-90s is one long, bad disaster movie (the Cassandra Crossing, say). Unemployment went over 6% in 1974 and didn’t come back down to that level until 2008. For nearly all of the 1980s, it was over 8% and from 1982 to 1994 it was over 10% half the time. The Keynesian medicine that was supposed to get us out of such messes simply did not work because the problems were structural. More...
By . The period roughly from 1959 to the oil crisis of 1973-74 is rightly thought of as a Golden Age for higher education in Canada, much as it is in the United States. Universities ballooned in size and gradually became more research-intensive. A new class of institutions, community colleges, were added to the system. Provinces finally got around to thinking systemically about higher education, and electorates were broadly tolerant about spending any amount of money to expand and improve the system. More...
By . During the war years, post-secondary education was essentially on hold. But immediately afterwards, in the period from 1945-1960, there were some major developments. The first was dealing with a major surge in enrolments due to returning veterans. In 1944-45, full-time enrolment was 38,516, slightly below where it was in 1938. More...
By . A clutch of recent media stories about higher education are kind of irritating me. Specifically, it’s the media credulity on display which is so disheartening.
One major source of irritation has to do with stories which get written when a professor is suspended or dismissed. We’ve had two of these recently, one in Nova Scotia and one in BC. More...
By . The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) put out its Alternative Federal Budget last month (earlier and much shorter than usual, for reasons I don’t understand). As has been the case for the last couple of years, the AFB included a “free tuition” program. More...
By . Answering the question of which provincial government spends the most on post-secondary education is trickier than it looks. Not only do provinces differ in size (Ontario is roughly 95 times the size of Prince Edward Island), but they differ in terms of post-secondary participation rates, they differ in terms of the types of institutions they fund, and of course they differ in wealth and fiscal capacity. More...
By . The United States is currently in its 113th month of consecutive economic expansion. The all-time record is 120. A trade-war-obsessed lunatic is in control of the White House, and earlier this year Congress approved maybe the most radical set of deficit-driven tax cuts ever proposed. The likelihood that a recession hits the United States at some point in the next 24 months is thus exceedingly high. More...
By . It is now almost standard at conferences in Canada to start with a formal acknowledgement that we are standing on the unceded territory of the relevant First Nation or Nations. While important, indeed, necessary, it sometimes feels a bit like a token ritual, without really addressing the issues of colonialism or really understanding aboriginal culture or needs. More...
By Inge Ignatia de Waard. Assessing online learning has many challenges, but with this new book written by experts Dianne Conrad and Jason Openo, a lot of solutions can be found. The book, entitled Assessment Strategies for Online Learning - Engagement and Authenticity, can be bought for 32,99 dollars here (if you have a budget this is the way to go as you support author and initiative), or you can have a look at the free pdf here. This book is a must read for those using assessment, as it not only gives traditional assessment, but also dives into evaluations that are linked to open learning, journals, portfolios, etc. Great and interesting read. More...
By Inge Ignatia de Waard. The call for papers below is for authors researching 'human learning and learning analytics in the age of artificial intelligence' and is an action to celebrate BJET's 50th anniversary. But first ... the call for co-authors to realize a new Rebus book on the subject of Introduction to Philosophy series. More...
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