Category: Politics

Alberta PSE News

It’s been awhile since we’ve taken a policy tour out west, but it’s time I think to take a look at what’s going on in Alberta, where the NDP government is past its midpoint and starting to work towards an election in 2019. One day, someone is going to write a fantastic political book about the Alberta NDP.  This is a party that went from (essentially) nothing to government in the space of a few crazy weeks in 2015.  They

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Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot

It’s the end of the year for us at HESA Towers today (at least as far as blogging goes).  I know in the Scottish tradition, you’re supposed to use the end of the year for memories, but I kind of prefer the Japanese tradition of Bonenkai, or “forget-the-year”: basically, wipe out as many brain cells with alcohol and start the new year fresh. So, with that in mind, let’s look forward to 2018.   What should we expect? Well, I think

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Antipodean Tuition News

All the really interesting news about tuition these days is happening south of the equator–let’s catch up. Chile.  When last we checked in on things in Santiago, we noted how President Bachelet’s gratuidad program had kind of foundered on the rocks of reality.  Having brought in free fees for the students in the bottom six income deciles at a cost of 607 billion pesos (roughly $1.25B Canadian), it turned out that the additional cost to make education free for the top four deciles

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Artificial Intelligence

I am getting pretty sick of AI hype.  It’s not that I think AI is without value or a mirage or anything, but I think people are getting weirdly reluctant to challenge even the most obviously nonsensical claims about the industry.  But, since apparently others don’t seem to want to play skeptic on this, I guess I’m “it”.  So here goes: My critique of current AI-mania is basically three-fold. The Term Artificial Intelligence is Being Stretched Beyond Meaningful Use This

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A Canny Government Relations Strategy

[the_ad id=”11720″] Though it didn’t get a whole lot of ink/pixels, the Council of Ontario Universities launched a new lobbying campaign last week.  It’s called Partnering for a Better Future for Ontario and its focal point is a document of the same name – you can read the short version of the report here (yes, I know, only in academia could the short version of a lobbying report be 44 pages long).  In fact, it’s accompanied by a wide variety of supporting documents which

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