HEQCO Skills Consortium Final Meeting

In May 2021, HEQCO announced a call for proposals to create a consortium that would evaluate programs or interventions relating to the acquisition, development and/or articulation of transferable skills. Over the last two years, we have funded seven projects that sought to cultivate one or more in-demand, transferable skills such as numeracy, leadership, time management […]

Teaching Transferable Skills for Labour Market Success: Introducing HEQCO’s Skills Consortium

Having identified essential transferable skills (and how to measure them) in previous work, HEQCO sought to investigate the most effective ways of teaching them. To do so, we partnered with eight PSE institutions to form a Skills Consortium, designed to evaluate programs and interventions related to the acquisition, development and articulation of transferable skills — […]

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Ontario Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Ontario First-year Postsecondary Students in 2020–21

Ontario Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Ontario First-year Postsecondary Students in 2020–21 was written by Jeffrey Napierala, Natalie Pilla, Jackie Pichette & Julia Colyar, Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. A study of the first cohort to enter postsecondary during the pandemic reveals consistent challenges and key recommendations A study of students who […]

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Jackie Pichette, Dua Abdelqader and Mona Eghanian — Unlike cars, microcredentials won’t drive themselves

Microcredentials are a form of focused learning with the potential to respond to both the modern hiring needs of employers and the training needs of adults looking to advance or pivot in the labour market. At HEQCO, we define them as being tied to short learning opportunities that are focused on a discrete set of […]

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Janice Deakin and Julia Colyar — Introducing the new HEQCO Research Roadmap

Our appointments as CEO and Vice President just over a year ago turned out to be coincident with many things, some anticipated and others not! The need to develop a new strategic research framework to guide HEQCO’s activities for the next three years was top of mind for us; however the path to completion was […]

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Janice Deakin, Julia Colyar & Jackie Pichette — Microcredentials: Short, focused learning that responds to emerging demands

The microcredential landscape is evolving quickly. Since HEQCO began researching the topic in early 2020, the Ontario government has  dedicated close to $60 million for a micro-credential strategy that includes new programs, an online portal and a public awareness campaign. In March, the government announced that it was expanding eligibility for Ontario student loans and […]

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Jackie Pichette – Survey of Canadians reinforces need for clear, standard definition of “microcredential”

Micro mania — that’s what we called the mix of excitement and uncertainty brewing around microcredentials in Ontario last Spring. Since then, HEQCO partnered with the Business + Higher Education Roundtable (BHER) to help address some of the uncertainty surrounding microcredentials.  We’re building an evidence base that anyone from the college, university or government sectors can draw from […]

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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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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 […]