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Category: Policy

Middle Country Problems, Big Country Solutions

Only three countries have ever sent spacecraft to the Moon, and only one has ever had set humans afoot on it.  “Moonshots”, by definition, are things for big countries with big budgets. So why in the hell do so many folks now want to talk about Canada engaging in “moonshots”?  It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how countries like Canada can best engage in innovation, science and technology: an importation of big country ideas into a context of a smaller country

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January 25, 2022 1 Comment

Experimental Evidence on Student Assistance

One of the things I am proudest of in my career is the role I played – almost 20 years ago when I was at the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation – in trying to start a tradition of evidence-based research in Canadian higher education.  And by evidence-based, I don’t just mean creating better statistical bases to describe systemic inputs and outputs, I mean actual experimental evidence regarding how certain treatments/policies work. For those of you not up on the concept

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November 9, 2021 2 Comments

The Childcare Debate and PSE

Childcare and post-secondary education share enough traits that they are worth examining together, as HESA has done previously here and here.  The most obvious similarity is that, in contrast to K-12 education, they are both forms of non-compulsory education.  Well, sort of: it’s never entirely clear to what extent people are pushing childcare as an education measure and to what extent they are pushing its value to freeing families – mainly women – to participate in the labour market which results in

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September 7, 2021 1 Comment

2021 PSE Platforms – The Conservative Party

Alright, fam.  You know the drill.  It’s a federal election, so between now and September 20th, I’ll be looking at various party manifestos to see what they portend for our sector, and then finishing up with some comparative analysis.  I am not entirely sure how many parties I will do: I never do the Bloc for obvious reasons, so that leaves three and *maybe* a fourth if the Greens get their act together to release any policies and stop behaving

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September 1, 2021 1 Comment

Missions and Moonshots

There is a crowd of policy entrepreneurs in Canada – mostly but not entirely Liberal, mostly but not entirely based in Ottawa – who have really cottoned on to the whole notion of innovation.  Like many of us who have despaired over successive governments’ lack of cluefulness on this issue, they are dissatisfied with the status quo.  Unfortunately, these people are currently marching with wholly unjustified confidence towards policies that are largely buzzword-driven. It’s not just this ludicrous notion of

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June 15, 2021 1 Comment

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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