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Category: Policy

A Flawed Report on Sexual Violence

You may remember a couple of years ago I expressed some concern about the structure of a survey on sexual harassment and sexual violence being designed by the Ministry of Training Colleges and University in Ontario.  In particular, I was concerned that by trying to go for a census rather than a sample, they would in fact get lower overall data quality (why do a census of a superficial quant survey when you could cut costs by sampling and use

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March 22, 2019 2 Comments

What to Look for in Tonight’s Budget

At 4 PM EST, Finance Minister Bill Morneau will rise in the House of Commons to deliver his fourth budget, and the last one before a federal election in the fall.  What can we expect from the budget on the big PSE-files?  Here’s a quick rundown. Transfer Payments: Status quo. Research: My guess is that there are small goodies in this budget, if only to give them an excuse to reprint everything they did last year in this year’s budget

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March 19, 2019 No Comments

Straight Dope on Learning Accounts

So, le tout Ottawa now seems convinced, given that a) the March budget is allegedly about skills (for the middle class, you know), b) the feds mostly handed the skills portfolio over to the provinces years ago that Individual Learning Accounts (ILAs), are definitely On The Agenda.  Possibly with some language around guaranteeing workers time off for skills training. So, can this work?  Has it worked elsewhere?  Glad you asked. The idea of ILAs are nothing new.  In one form or another

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February 14, 2019 1 Comment

Speak of the Devil

Yesterday was one of those days when I completely lucked out.  There I was, having just published a piece on possible scenarios on what the Ontario government might do in post-secondary education, when suddenly various news outlets began reporting that a new tuition framework was due to be announced later this week.  And it was a doozy: according to the report, the Conservative government was planning on reducing tuition in all regulated programs (ie. excluding international students and the graduate and

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January 16, 2019 3 Comments

2003-04: The Historical Hinge of International Rankings

Cast your minds back, if you will, by about 15 years.  Paul Martin had yet to show us why great finance ministers make lousy Prime Ministers.  The ghastly CROCS fad was still three years away.  And in China, Professor Nian Cai Liu had just released the inaugural Academic Ranking of World Universities, known more colloquially as the Shanghai Rankings. While national rankings were old hat, the Shanghai Rankings’ global nature was something genuinely new.  The sadly-defunct magazine Asiaweek had tried

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December 6, 2018 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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