By . There’s an argument going on in the UK right now about re-introducing grammar schools. Until the 1960s, grammar schools were a selective tier of the secondary system. Everyone took exams at the age of eleven, and the most academically able were selected to go to these schools, the purpose of which (everyone understood) was to enable people to go to university. More...
By . Last week I noted that one of the big factors in international education was the big increase in enrolments around the world, particularly in developing countries. Part of that big increase had to do with a significant increase in the number of youth around the world who were of “normal” age for higher education – that is, between about 20 and 24. More...
By . What with the Advisory Council on Growth’s paper on skills, and the Expert Panel on Youth Employment wrapping up, public policy is suddenly back to a focus on skills – and in particular what skills youth should have. So, let’s talk about that. More...
By . With the Republicans in control of both Congress and the White house for at least the next two years, the fight for “free tuition” is moving to the state level. And so to New York, where Governor Cuomo has proposed a form of “free tuition” for anyone attending the City University of New York (CUNY) or the State University of New York (SUNY) and whose family earns less than $125,000. So what does this mean exactly. More...
By . So, yesterday Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth released five (!) papers on innovation, skills, and a bunch of other things. I’m sure there’s a lot of ink on these in today’s papers, mainly around proposals to raise the retirement age. More...
By . Here’s a new one: the Canadian Federation of Students has decided, apparently, that charging international students higher tuition fees is “xenophobic”. No, really, they have. This is possibly the dumbest idea in Canadian higher education since the one about OSAP “profiting” from students. More...
By . A few months ago I was asked to give a presentation about my thoughts on the “big trends” affecting international education. I thought it might be worth setting some of these thoughts to paper (so to speak), and so, every Friday for the next few weeks I’ll be looking one major trend in internationalization, and exploring its impact on Canadian PSE. More...
By . It’s tough to be in government these days: prolonged slow growth means it’s difficult to keep increasing spending at a rate at which citizens have become accustomed. Instead, with rising costs and little appetite to raise taxes or fees, governing often seems to be one long exercise in nickel-and-diming. Higher education – in most of Canada at least – has felt some of this, but in truth has been insulated more than most other parts of the public service. More...
By . Back in the summer you may have heard a bit of a brouhaha about a deal signed between Colleges Ontario and McDonald’s, allowing McDonald’s management trainees to receive advanced standing in business programs at Ontario colleges. More...
By . One of the more thoughtful replies I received to my piece on CAUT’s politicization of university accounting pointed out that one of the reasons people didn’t trust university accounting was because they made seemingly incomprehensible decisions with respect to hiring. How was it, my reader asked, that there was plenty of money to hire sessionals but never money to hire full-time, permanent faculty? Isn’t that money fungible? Why spend on one and not the other. More...
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