The Ontario Liberals announced on Jan. 20 that they are extending the ‘30 per cent off’ tuition grant eligibility to cover about 5,000 more students.

Co-op students in their final year of a five-year program and students in private postsecondary institutions who qualify for the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) are now also eligible for a 30 per cent off rebate on their tuition.

“For co-op students, while their program lasts five years [instead of four], a good part of that is taken up by work experience. When the 30-off tuition program was originally constituted, this was kind of an anomaly that was determined afterwards,” said Brad Duguid, minister of training, colleges and universities.

In spite of the expanded eligibility requirements, provincial student lobbying groups have pointed out perceived shortcomings of the program.

After the announcement, the Canadian Federation of Students – Ontario released a statement saying they do not support the extension of the grant to students in private career colleges and institutions.

“The issue is that the government is funding private institutions rather than prioritizing public postsecondary education and making it more affordable,” said Anna Goldfinch, national executive representative for the CFS-Ontario.

Goldfinch expressed concern over the ministry’s oversight of private career colleges, referencing public scrutiny over the ministry’s enforcement of the Private Career Colleges Act. In 2009, for instance, the Ontario Ombudsman’s office found that the ministry had “inadequate oversight” of Bestech Academy Inc. The owner had falsely advertised the academy as a registered private career college.

The CFS-Ontario maintains that while the expansion of the grant could help 5,000 more students, the funds would be better allocated to institutions’ operating grants toward a 30 per cent reduction of tuition over three years.

Duguid said the Ontario government is committed to providing targeted funding to lower-middle income students in the form of financial assistance.

“We want the funding that we’re providing to lower-middle income students to go directly to those students, rather than the institutions. That’s what’s important about the 30 off grant,” Duguid said.

Spencer Graham, vice-president (education) for the MSU and a member of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance’s steering committee, said he was surprised the government would extend the grant eligibility to students in private career colleges. However, he said OUSA still supports the expansion of the grant.

“OUSA believes increases to base operating budgets is important and that remains a priority for us. That doesn’t mean we’re coming out against the increased Ontario tuition grant eligibility, because it does help students. It’s not necessarily an either-or,” Graham said.

OUSA continues to lobby for expansion of the tuition grant. The grant currently covers students who attend college or university up to four years after they graduate from high school, and those in a five-year co-op program.

“That policy serves as a barrier to a number of students who attend postsecondary education after the four years after high school are up,” Graham said.

“Particularly this speaks to students who have dependents and children. We also see that Aboriginal learners tend to wait a number of years before entering postsecondary education. The grant doesn’t cover those two types of students, who face particular barriers,” he said.

OUSA’s pre-budget submission to the Ontario government also recommends that the grant should offer 35 per cent off tuition, up from 30 per cent.

Currently, eligible students can save $1,730 in tuition on average for degree programs and $790 for diploma or certificate programs. The deadline to apply for the grant for the winter semester is March 1, 2014. According to the Ontario government, 230,000 students received the tuition grant last year. About 310,000 were eligible before the expansion of the program.

This article was originally published on the Canadian University Press's newswire.

The Ontario government will invest $42 million over three years in ‘Ontario Online,’ an e-learning platform and consortium set to launch in the 2015-16 academic year.

Brad Duguid, the province’s minister of training, colleges and universities, announced the initiative on Jan. 13. The centre would offer centralized online courses for credit, transferable between participating institutions across the province, although universities and colleges are not mandated to sign on.

“Right now we have what I would call a hodge-podge of online learning technology,” Duguid said. “Some institutions are global leaders. Others are holding back. I think we want to get to a point where every student in the province has access to this learning technology.”

Ontario Online will consist of a course registry, an instruction hub for institutions to share best practices for course development and a support hub to offer assistance to students and instructors.

"The MSU definitely supports McMaster joining Ontario Online for a number of reasons," said Spencer Graham, vice-president (education) of the MSU. "We think it will provide students with a lot of increased options and flexibility in terms of how they want to learn."

The centre is the result of various consultations between the ministry and stakeholders over the past several years. The centre will not be a degree-granting institution, which student and faculty groups opposed in roundtable discussions. 

“I think this has definitely been refined from the initial proposal,” said Alastair Woods, chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students - Ontario. However, the organization remains skeptical of the ministry’s direction on e-learning and mandate to offer students more of a choice between in-class learning and online learning.

“I think it’s important to ask who is being presented with that choice,” Woods said. “In many cases, if you live in an urban area like downtown Toronto, you do have a choice. But if you live in rural or northern Ontario or you’re a francophone or aboriginal student, I actually think this reduces your choices because you still may not be able to leave your community to go to school.”

“I think what’s more important for students in those communities would be to have more financial support for them to go to a brick-and-mortar school should they choose to do so,” he said. 

According to the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, which supported the ministry’s announcement, postsecondary institutions in Ontario saw nearly 500,000 online course registrations in 2011.

Ontario Online was developed in tandem with the province’s ‘differentiation’ policy framework, which was redefined in November 2013. The current framework emphasizes minimizing duplication in course offerings across the province and building a globally competitive system.

Duguid said the new online learning centre “isn’t driven by cost savings” though it would result in savings for some institutions and potential revenue for others.

“Some students will learn better in an online course, and some students may have other obligations outside of school life that make it necessary to go online,” Duguid said.

Woods supported the idea of knowledge-sharing online but said more needs to be done to improve access to postsecondary education.

“What worries me is that there are a lot of changes coming down the sector that the government claims will produce cost savings but are not motivated by cost savings. I don’t think that’s an entirely genuine statement. I think in the absence of any new funding models, the government is trying to come up with ways to do more with less,” he said.

The University of Waterloo, which currently offers more than 240 online courses through its Centre for Extended Learning, allows undergraduate students in five programs to get their degrees entirely online. The university is expected to play a strong role in the new e-learning centre.

Catherine Newell Kelly, director of the UWaterloo’s Centre for Extended Learning, said high-quality online courses would require heavy support for faculty on the development side.

“We bring a whole project team to online course development and work with the instructor to help him or her understand how to teach in the online environment,” she said.

“I do not think that online learning will replace classroom learning. I think technology allows us to think about how students best learn and which pieces of a course might be delivered by technology.” 

Details of how courses would be administered through Ontario Online and whether college and university courses would be cross-listed haven’t yet been released. More announcements from the ministry are expected in the coming months.

Several student unions in Ontario have joined the campaign to raise the minimum wage to $14. Anti-poverty groups proposed the minimum wage hike in March this year as part of their ‘Fair Wages Now’ campaign.

Alastair Woods, chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students (Ontario), said members voted unanimously in their August general meeting to support the cause. Leading up to Nov. 14, a designated day of action, students joined community groups in voicing their concerns to local politicians.

“The last time we had a minimum wage increase was in 2010. Since then, the cost of education and living has gone up significantly,” Woods said. “The $14 [was determined] through community consultation to bring full-time workers about 10 per cent over the poverty line.”

Guled Arale, VP (external) for the University of Toronto’s Scarborough Campus Student Union, has been working with community groups to advocate for a $14 minimum wage.

“We had a forum a few weeks ago with 200 to 250 people in Scarborough and it was really good to see that many people working on this issue - not all of them were students, but many were parents of students,” Arale said.

Arale said a minimum wage hike would help students earn a living wage, particularly those working in casual or part-time positions while in school.

“Every year, the cost of living goes up for students, but a lot of students who do work minimum wage don't see their wages increase,” he said.

In a similar vein, Carleton University’s Graduate Students’ Association recently supported the hike in a presentation to the Ontario government’s minimum wage advisory panel. The panel was formed in the summer and will advise the province on future minimum wage increases.

“A lot of graduate students work as a TA or RA and take other jobs on the side,” said Lauren Montgomery, VP (external) of the Carleton GSA. “If the minimum wage were to be $14, grad students could take on less part-time jobs and put more into their schoolwork and teaching.”

She also mentioned the mounting pressure graduate students face in terms of rising tuition, debt load and, in many cases, childcare costs.

Along with groups such as the Workers’ Action Centre, the CFS-Ontario has submitted recommendations to the province’s advisory panel.

“Just two decades ago, a student could work full-time at minimum wage over the summer at 35 hours a week for 9 weeks, and pay off a year’s worth of undergraduate tuition fees. Today, it would take at least 20 weeks at minimum wage...more weeks than are in the summer,” CFS-Ontario’s submission states.

According to Statistics Canada, 60 per cent of minimum wage workers are under 25 years old, and of those youth workers, 44 per cent aged 20 to 24 attend school.

Event draws limited student participation

Ryan Sparrow

On Oct. 23, representatives from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) - Ontario, the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) - Ontario, and McMaster faculty member, Peter Graefe, all spoke out against the purposed changes to the sector. Also on the panel was NDP politician, Theresa Armstrong who is the NDP critic for the Ministry of Training, Colleges and University (MTCU).

The panel was organized by the NDP Riding Associations of Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale and Hamilton Centre. The event was attended by approximately 40 people.

Janice Folk-Dawson, Chair of the Ontario University Workers Coordination Committee of CUPE- Ontario criticized the Ministry’s plans and called “for the establishment of a true consultation process with wide ranging discussions including chronic underfunding to post-secondary institutions and a discussion of tuition and auxiliary fees.”

Peter Graefe, a Political Science professor, criticized the three semester a year plan stating, “As much as people think I’m at home sunbathing myself during those [summer] months, I’m here most days involved in work related to research.”

He also addressed the Ministry’s suggestion about three-year degrees, and said, “Three year degrees, is there a demand for that? We have been seeing three year degrees shut down across the province for a lack of demand for a variety of reasons.”

“When we talk about scarce public resources we have to realise that it is a myth, the income tax for people making over 500,000 dollars was introduced and next thing you know we got an extra 500 million in revenue” said Mike Yam, CFS-Ontario researcher.

“I know a lot of labour unions and progressive economists talk about reversing corporate tax cuts; for sure if they were back to 2009 levels we’d have an extra two billion plus dollars in government coffers that could provide for all undergraduates in Ontario to go to school for free.”

Theresa Armstrong, the NDP Critic for MTCU, gave a uniformly scripted speech, which provided little insight into the Ontario New Democrat’s plans outside of re-stating their election promises.

Dan Fahey, a third-year Integrated Science student, felt upset with the lack of a comprehensive vision presented by the NDP stating that he, “felt underwhelmed by Theresa Armstrong’s performance, when the stakes are so high with the attack to education that we are facing.”

“I thought Mike Yam said the right things. That we need to build solidarity between students and staff on campus and it’s going to take a lot of work.”