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Category: Institutions

Golden Liberty or Rapid Collegiality?

Once upon a time, there was a land of liberty known as Poland.  While the rest of Europe was going through the counter-reformation, the Thirty Years’ War, and the beginnings of absolutism, Poland had the world’s most liberal constitution.  Nobles (who formed a rather substantial portion of the population) had the right to elect their king.  Religious freedom existed (though Catholics remained a strong majority).  The king could not declare war or peace without Parliamentary agreement (the Sejm), nor could he

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October 1, 2015 3 Comments

The China “Crisis”

It’s no secret that China dominates the world market when it comes to sending students abroad.  About 20% of all globally-mobile students are from China; in countries like the US, Canada, and the UK, they are far and away the number one source of foreign students.  (In all three countries, Chinese students account for as many foreign students as the next four source countries combined.) Now every once in awhile – more and more frequently these days – you get some

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September 21, 2015 No Comments

Improving the Discourse on Skills and Education

Recently, I did a fascinating set of roundtable discussions with employers and employer associations, and it brought home to me how one-dimensional much of our talk is regarding skills. Broadly speaking, there are four sets of skills employers care about.  The first are job- or occupation-related skills: can a mechanic actually fix a car? Can an architect design buildings? And so on.  By and large, if you ask employers whether universities and colleges are successfully providing their graduates with this

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September 10, 2015 2 Comments

Costing an Inuit University

There is an interesting initiative afoot to create something called the Inuit Nunangat University.  A workshop report on the concept is here.  Today, I thought I would contribute to the debate by looking at what such an initiative might cost. Some background: the idea of an Arctic university is not new.  Many people have noted that Canada is the only member of the Arctic Council that does not have a university north of the Arctic Circle.  This largely has to

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September 4, 2015 No Comments

Theories of Change

One of the easiest things to do in policy is to advocate for policy X, so as to change effect Y.  One of the hardest things to do is to get people to explain clearly their theory of change.  That is, what are the steps by which changing X actually affects Y? Take performance-based funding.  It’s easy to get hot for the idea that organizations can be steered by offering incentives: if you pay schools for students, they’ll raise enrolment. 

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August 27, 2015 2 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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