In the preface to his book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, John Maynard Keynes wrote: “The ideas which are expressed here…are extremely simple and should be obvious. The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us […]
Like a lot of parents, my mother worried that I would never find work with my undergraduate English degree. One line I especially hated to hear from her was “The jobs are all going away!” Now that I have spent a couple decades hiring people with humanities degrees, I think differently about what she said […]
Those of us focused on facts rather than anecdotes have known all along that the alleged collapse of employment opportunities for higher education graduates is untrue. At HEQCO, we have published on this. And now comes a major breakthrough, a significant step forward, in our data-driven understanding of outcomes for Canadian college and university graduates. […]
Work-integrated learning (WIL) and experiential education (EE) are hot topics. This focus has been amplified by recent recommendations from the Business Council of Canada and the Ontario Premier’s Highly Skilled Workforce Expert Panel, as well as reinforced by comments from the Premier, that 100% of postsecondary students should have at least one WIL or EE […]
Today HEQCO is releasing the latest in our continuing series of papers examining the differentiation of the Ontario university sector. Our first analysis emphasized the dimension used most frequently to describe university differentiation – research intensity. On the basis of the data underlying that analysis, we proposed that Ontario universities cluster into four groups – […]
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EduData – Ontario’s 20 Unique Universities
There’s good reason that Ontario is promoting differentiation in its higher education system. Differentiation – where institutions build on their specific strengths, mandates and missions – delivers real choice for students, better quality, and a system we can all afford to sustain and grow. Our visualization showcases the existing state of differentiation between Ontario’s 20 […]
One of HEQCO’s keynotes from the recent Transitions conference, Paul Tough, has a great piece in the June issue of The Atlantic on how kids learn resilience. This is familiar ground for him—Tough’s bestselling book, How Children Succeed, explains how qualities like perseverance, curiosity and self-control are just as crucial to a child’s success as […]
The Business Council of Canada has added its voice to the now ubiquitous call for the expansion of postsecondary experiential education. The general direction and intent of the recommendations are sound, although we worry about the capacity to find meaningful experiential education opportunities for all students. HEQCO and others have long argued the benefits of […]
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Nicholas Dion – Numeracy is not math
While the terms math and numeracy are often used interchangeably, they refer to quite different things, and the distinction plays an important – if often implicit – role in defining the scope of the conversations we have about numeracy skills. In brief, while math is conceptual and abstract, numeracy is the practical application of mathematical […]