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Access Reboot: New Directions for Higher Education

We are very pleased to announce the return of the HEQCO conference. This one-day, in-person event will be taking place on November 3, 2023 at the Delta Hotel Toronto. HEQCO’s 9th conference, Access Reboot: New Directions for Higher Education will be an opportunity to share best practices, develop ideas and challenge traditional approaches to equity, […]

Women in Academia

Welcome to the Women in Academia Project HEQCO is pleased to announce the release of a multi-part research project designed to explore current and historical gender disparities among faculty in Ontario universities. Despite advocacy efforts, collective bargaining, targeted funding and legislation, gaps in representation, promotion and earnings for women academics persist. These inequalities are especially […]

Quick Stats

How many Ontario students applied to the province’s colleges and universities during the last decade? How many enrolled? How many graduated? Find the answers to these and other good questions in Quick Stats, a compendium of data on Ontario’s postsecondary system. Note: All visualizations begin in 2013 and go up to the most recent year […]

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Robert H. Seidman – Degree-in-three programs built on competency and assessment

Higher education in the United States is at a tipping point. The cost of a college education has spiraled out of control, leaving deserving students priced out of a bright future and putting the nation at risk of losing much-needed talent. Many states are reducing funding for publicly supported colleges, driving the price of securing […]

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Peter Wolf – Learning outcomes for life: intentional, explicit and practiced

Learning outcomes have been a key part of my professional life in higher education for the past 25 years. I completed a degree in social work at McGill University way back in the 80’s and haven’t been a social worker for a very long time. While I still can remember some content I learned (remembering […]

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Karen Young – Tackling mental health issues online and on the ground

Young people aged 15 to 24 experience the highest incidence of mental illnesses, according to Statistics Canada. Specific to higher education, the National College Health Survey—completed in 2013 by more than 34,000 Canadian postsecondary students—found an increase in almost all types of mental health concerns including depression, anxiety, attentional related concerns, addiction related concerns and […]

Closing the Design Loop in First-year Engineering: Modelling and Simulation for Iterative Design

Study examines experiential learning approaches to teaching engineering design​ A new study by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) examines the potential impact of experiential learning strategies, like simulation and prototyping, on teaching design to first-year engineering students. Specifically, the study examines the impact of these strategies on self-efficacy, which is a belief […]

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Richard Wiggers – Wanted and coming: Solid, reliable and current info on life after PhD

In a recent report from The Conference Board of Canada, Inside and Outside the Academy: Valuing and Preparing PhDs for Careers, the authors employ data from the 2011 census to assert that fewer than one in five (18.6%) of Canadians holding a PhD are employed as full-time university professors. The number drops to fewer than […]

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Barry Fishman and Caitlin Holman – Higher ed grading systems deserve an F

Higher education graduates need to be prepared with the knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary to be leaders and contributors at all levels of society. What stands in the way of this outcome? One barrier is the grading systems we employ, contributing to the problem of graduates who are not well prepared for a global 21st […]