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Category: Canada

Data Point of the Week: StatsCan Gets it Wrong in the EAG

So, as noted yesterday, the OECD’s Education at a Glance (EAG) statfest – all 495 pages of it – was just released. Now it’s our turn to dissect some of what’s in there. Of most immediate interest was chart B5.3, which shows the relative size of public subsidies for higher education as a percentage of public expenditures on education. It’s an odd measure, because having a high percentage could mean either that a country has very high subsidies (e.g., Norway, Sweden) or very low public expenditures (e.g.,

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September 14, 2011 No Comments

Blended Learning Has a Long Way to Go

Here’s the key fact you need to know about HESA’s new report on the State of E-learning in Canada: as the intensity of availability of e-learning resources increase, students become less satisfied, and less likely to say they feel they are learning a lot. Contrary to the rantings of technophiles, students don’t behave much like “digital natives.” They still far prefer to do their readings on paper rather than on a screen, for instance. They really don’t seem to have

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September 8, 2011 1 Comment

Anticipating Demographic Shifts

I was in Regina last week speaking to the university’s senior management team about challenges in Canadian post-secondary education, when someone asked a really intriguing question. “Given the changing demographics of Canada, with fewer traditional-aged students, are there any examples of good practice of universities altering their programming serving non-traditional students instead”? I have to admit, I was stumped. You’d think, for instance, that maritime universities, who have been facing demographic decline for quite some time, would have some experience

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August 30, 2011 1 Comment

Market Opportunities – A Blue Ocean Strategy in Doctoral Education

The economics of higher education are pointing inexorably towards a two-tier faculty system; one in which research is rewarded, and one in which teaching is rewarded. If this wasn’t plain over the last fifteen years or so, it certainly should be by now. So why haven’t Ph.D. programs shifted to adapt to this reality? If we’re looking at a future where there are at least as many graduates whose careers will depend upon their pedagogical prowess as upon research excellence,

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August 29, 2011 No Comments

HESA in the Montreal Gazette

On Saturday, the Montreal Gazette’s Karen Seidman talked to HESA President Alex Usher and others about student engagement in campus life: Alex Usher is the president of Higher Education Strategy Associates, a Toronto think-tank that helps universities and governments measure and improve education strategies, and he doesn’t believe the learning experience changes much for commuter students. “A lot of the research showing that commuter campuses have higher dropout rates comes out of the U.S.,” he said. “It’s not necessarily true in

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August 28, 2011 No 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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