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k-12 education
Thank you for the gracious pat on the back, BBC, but let's look at more data before policy makers and universities believe their "achievements."
A high-quality education's effectiveness is determined by the quality of its teachers - teacher education, skills and training.
Schools are pumping out under-educated, skills-lacking graduates who don't know how to learn because they never mastered the process of learning. We don't need to entertain kids to give them a quality education. To improve performance and creativity in schools, try raising your standards.
Many parents and students think it's okay to take it easy until grade eleven because that's when universities start to look at grades. And once grade eleven hits, parents will often advocate for higher grades from their beleaguered school teachers. That's where the trouble begins.
Millennials are now the largest generation in the Canadian workforce, and within the next few years will begin to get real responsibility and influence in shaping our country's future. With the school year now behind us, it's a great time to think about what the future holds for education in Canada and how millennial attitudes will shape this future.
Access to e-learning solutions is less pressing today than ever. More schools, teachers, and students have access to the internet than ever before. More than ever, there is choice in the market. Every product segment of education technology is exploding with well-funded competition, and many of them offer free solutions for teachers. So why are we still funding outdated one-size-fits-all models when it comes to tech in classrooms?
There is a great deal of debate about whether or not technology will revolutionize education. To me the debate itself points out a problem. With the number of free and low-cost educational resources that technology has made available it should have, at least to an extent. The fact that it hasn't points to a problem with the system overall. If we want to get the most out of our schools, the education system should be designed exclusively for children and for the world in which we currently live.
Understanding Ontario's financial woes is critical to understanding the need for real change. The province has been in deficit since 2008-09, accumulating more than $61 billion in debt. In 2013-14, the deficit was $11.3 billion. The province's debt now stands at almost $270 billion; it was just $130 billion at the start of the 2000s.
