Category: Policy

HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (December 1, 2024)

Spotlight Good evening, In my last AI blog, I wrote about the recent launch of the Canadian AI Safety Institute, and other AISIs around the world. I also mentioned that I was looking forward to learn more about what would be discussed during the International Network for AI Safety meeting that would take place on November 20th-21st. Well, here’s the gist of it. Representatives from Australia, Canada, the European Commission, France, Japan, Kenya, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, the UK

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Nova Scotia Manifesto Analysis 2024

I thought I was done with election pieces for a while, but apparently Tim Houston wanted to get in an election this year (I guess it’s easier to run as a provincial Conservative while an obviously flailing Liberal administration is still in power in Ottawa), and so here we are with an election tomorrow and me with one more of these blogs to write. Fortunately for me, but unfortunately for the sector, the parties have conspired to keep this one

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A New Alberta Postsecondary Review

The week before last, the Alberta Minister of Advanced Education, Rajan Sawhney announced a funding review for Alberta post-secondary education. I saw a fair bit of snarky comment about this on social media which I thought was kind of unfair. (Note to followers: now that Bluesky actually has passed the minimum viable size to be a useful social media platform, you’ll mostly find me there rather than Twitter. My address is: @alexusherhesa.bsky.social). So, let’s break it down a bit. The

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HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (November 16, 2024)

Spotlight Good morning all,  You might remember the $2.4B announcement made by the federal government last April for the implementation of a series of measures meant to Strengthen Canada’s AI Advantage. (If you don’t, or if you’d like a refresher, you can read about it in our Budget 2024 Commentary). Within those $2.4B, $50M were earmarked for the creation of a Safety Institute. While this announcement was generally well received by our Canadian AI godfathers, little information was available at that

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The Road Ahead for International Students

You could be forgiven if, after the last few months, you thought that Canadian post-secondary institutions should be turning their attention away from international students. But nothing could be further from the truth. The underlying dynamics of international student recruitment have not changed—institutions still need money and provincial governments are basically united in their determination to prevent them from getting it from domestic sources—only the tactics going forward have. Let’s start on the college side. Their business has mostly been

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