Demand for relevance versus the push for open courses

By Grace Karram. For those planning to attend university in Ontario, entrance applications were due this week. Across Canada, the autumn news cycle has traditionally focused on which university to choose.
But this year, in the wake of October’s higher education rankings, the conversation is about how to make Canadian universities better, rather than which one is best for you. There is a certain dissatisfaction being vented against everything from low-tech pedagogy to decreasing research funding. But the loudest conversation when students and parents are involved is the relevance of degrees and employment of graduates.
This discourse, however, rings a little hollow in an era of open courseware and seemingly infinite educational choice. The pessimism about Canadian universities is largely in reaction to the overall decrease in rankings put out by the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings in October.