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Category: Government

Micro-credentials Need to be More than Gimmicks

If you’re one of those unfortunate people who follows the federal lobbying scene, you’ll have noticed that all of the PSE stakeholder groups, one way or another, are currently pitching micro-credentials to the feds either as “a contribution” PSE institutions are making to skills acquisition in the country (CICan) or as something the government should pay for by tacking on some kind of voucher to the CERB (Universities Canada, U15, and Polytechnics Canada).  I have three reactions to this. First,

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September 14, 2020 3 Comments

New Brunswick Election 2020

Next Monday, New Brunswick will go to the polls in the first of two likely provincial elections in this academic year (Saskatchewan looks set for October; BC could conceivably go early in the new year, but could also go the full four years and vote in fall 2021).  So, let’s take a look at what the parties are saying. Let’s start with the People’s Alliance, which is basically the old Confederation of Regions why-do-the-frenchies-get-so-much-attention coalition with a little bit of Ross

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September 10, 2020 No Comments

Half-done

Morning all.  This is the last blog before my usual summer break.  Service should resume on Monday, August 31st.  If you don’t hear from me then, check your spam box: often after I take a break, spam filters stop letting this e-mail through.  One housekeeping note: the pandemic has played hell with everyone’s usual schedule and one thing that got bumped on our end (because we reckoned everyone was too busy to pay attention) was the  second edition of our

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June 18, 2020 No Comments

That Alberta Transformation Contract

So, you may have seen on the weekend that the Alberta Government decided to award a $3.7 million contract to McKinsey & Company to conduct a review of the province’s post-secondary system. I have thoughts. The details of the contract are unavailable, but you can see the initial request for proposals here.  It’s actually a pretty cool set of research projects that might produce some interesting data.  I mean, admittedly they are things you’d expect your public service to mostly have

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June 15, 2020 1 Comment

Comparative Bailouts

Following yesterday’s discussion re: how we might want to ask for money, I thought it would be useful to look at how other national governments are responding to post-secondary pleas for help.  For obvious reasons, the focus here is on countries which rely on private funding (i.e. fees) to fund their systems, as publicly-funded systems aren’t immediately affected by changes in student demand and can borrow to cover shortfalls. Let’s start over the pond in the UK, where the Universities

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May 5, 2020 No Comments

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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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