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Sarah Brumwell and Jackie Pichette — Behind the numbers: How students are using a free skills-training platform

In 2017, the Ontario Government purchased three years of blanket access to the self-service online learning platform Lynda.com (now LinkedIn Learning) for the province’s public colleges and universities. eCampusOntario, tasked with managing the licence, partnered with HEQCO to evaluate the potential for this investment to help address perceived skills gaps among Ontario’s postsecondary students. As part of […]

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Amy Kaufman – Whither new grads? Labour market prospects and outcomes of the class of 2020

At the start of the year, the class of 2020 was expecting to graduate from college or university into a healthy labour market. Instead, the pandemic has reshaped the economy — and the career trajectories of new grads — virtually overnight. What does this mean for grads entering the labour market, and how can governments ensure they […]

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Jackie Pichette and Rosanna Tamburri — An agile system of lifelong learning is needed now more than ever

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 […]

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Amy Kaufman – Let’s hear it for our dedicated workers, and the institutions that trained them

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 […]

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Jackie Pichette and Jessica Rizk — Micro mania: Making sense of microcredentials in Ontario

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. […]

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It’sNotAcademic – The podcast: Episode nine with Val Walker

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 […]

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It’sNotAcademic – The podcast: Episode eight with Brenda Small

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 […]

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It’sNotAcademic – The podcast: Episode seven with Tim Fricker

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. […]

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Amy Kaufman — Ontario colleges at 50: Vive la différence

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 — […]