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Category: Canada

Canadian Innovation, Seen from Abroad

So, I came across this quite remarkable little document yesterday – it’s a report prepared by MIT-Skoltech on the universities around the world who contribute the most to their local innovation systems. (What is Skoltech, you ask?  Well, it’s a university located in a nascent science and tech hub, just outside Moscow, in a place called Skolkovo, and is the pet project of the Medvedev wing of the Kremlin.  Anchoring this tech hub is the new Skolkovo University of Science

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April 24, 2013 1 Comment

More Data on Skills Shortages

I’ve been doing some work on skills shortages recently, and came across this adorable little document from HRSDC.  It’s their employment projections for the period 2011-2021, and its conclusion is pretty unequivocal: we do not have major skills shortages in Canada, nor are we going to have them anytime soon. This prediction is based on something called COPS – the Canadian Occupation Projection System.  COPS makes long-term employment projections on an occupation-by-occupation basis, based on the major components of supply (new

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April 22, 2013 3 Comments

Discipline, Consistency, and Commitment

Although its release didn’t get much play last week, HEQCO’s report on the results of the Strategic Mandate Agreement process was noteworthy.  Read casually, it’s a formal and polite response to a government request for advice.  But it’s actually better understood as a primal scream – albeit one elegantly rendered in true Embrace-and-Contain style – demanding some grown-up policy-making for a change. The SMA process was initiated back when Glen Murray (remember him?) decided to negotiate Strategic Mandates with each of

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April 8, 2013 No Comments

A Persistent Problem with Truth

When it comes to the subjects of debt and tuition fees, the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) is the least trustworthy source on earth.  They lie.  Constantly. To see the latest collection, just look at this press release, which averages roughly one lie per paragraph.  For instance: “Since 2006, tuition fees have increased as much as 71 per cent in Ontario”.  The words “as much as” are doing a lot of work here.  For the vast majority of programs, the 5% annual increase

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April 1, 2013 8 Comments

Poor Barista, Rich Tradesperson

Many of you were kind enough to write in about my series on the relative value of Arts degrees versus trades, certifications, and the associated piece, which appeared in the Globe online.  I just wanted to finish off that series with a thought on how these memes are being propagated.  There are two points that I want to note, specifically. The first is that the “BAs vs. welders” argument is always carried-out by a curious and unbalanced mix of anecdotes and data. 

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March 27, 2013 2 Comments

One Thought to Start Your Day

One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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