Measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 have left the economy reeling. Employment in Ontario fell by a record 403,000 jobs, or 5.3%, in March from February, according to Statistics Canada. The province’s unemployment rate rose to 7.6%, up from 5.5%, the largest monthly increase on record.* No one could have predicted the severity of the COVID-19 […]
Category: Other HEQCO Staff
HEQCO CEO David Trick has mused in recent weeks (see here and here) about how Ontario’s postsecondary education sector can look to lessons from the past to help us deal with today’s exceptional circumstances. This idea of finding precedents for the unprecedented is one that we will return to, but this week I’d like to take a moment […]
We’ve been seeing the word “micro” a lot lately — microcourses, microdegrees, micromodules. It’s an interesting contrast to the introduction of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, from the beginning of the last decade. But much like the MOOC discourse, it feels as though there’s almost as much uncertainty as there is hype over microcredentials. […]
Welcome to the latest episode of It’sNotAcademic the podcast. It’s an often heard complaint. University and college graduates lack the skills that employers seek. They don’t have what it takes to thrive in today’s rapidly changing workplace. To look at this issue, the Business Council of Canada brought together representatives from some of Canada’s largest […]
Welcome to the latest episode of It’sNotAcademic the podcast. Two years ago, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued 94 calls to action, or recommendations, urging all levels of government to implement policies to acknowledge and redress the harm caused by residential schools to Indigenous people. Several of the recommendations urged governments, schools and postsecondary institutions […]
Welcome to the latest episode of It’sNotAcademic: the podcast – education conversations from HEQCO. Enrolment rates at Canadian universities and colleges have gone up considerably over the past two decades. That’s the good news. But, for a whole host of reasons, not all students who enrol in a degree or diploma program successfully complete it. […]
In 1967, then Minister of Education Bill Davis launched a network of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology. It was kind of a radical idea. He envisioned a set of comprehensive institutions that would offer a wide variety of programs focused on skill development through hands-on training. The colleges would provide flexible learning options — […]
Welcome to the latest episode of It’sNotAcademic: the podcast – education conversations from HEQCO. Last month, HEQCO invited experts from across Canada and the world to take part in a two-day workshop examining a big question: “How do you assess qualiy in higher education?” One of the participants was Hamish Coates, professor of higher education […]
Welcome to the latest episode of ItsNotAcademic – the podcast, education conversations from HEQCO. In anticipation of our Rethinking Access conference we have explored many dimensions of access on this podcast, but one area we have not yet discussed is the skilled trades. The trades are often left out of conversations about postsecondary education, despite […]