In a bid to reduce the huge number of university graduates with similar academic degrees competing with each other for the same jobs, China has announced that it will turn at least half of its public universities into institutions of applied learning or polytechnics to produce more technically trained graduates, reported The Chronicle of Higher Education June 18. Qiang Zha, professor of education at York University in Canada, said the policy amounted to a move towards a ‘binary’ higher education system of academic and applied institutions. Read full story.
Kathleen Wynne’s victory a strong rebuke to the austerity agenda
Ontario voters didn’t buy Tim Hudak’s anti-government stance. And about two thirds of the electorate supported parties that offered an activist approach. This was not only an important election for Ontario. Its outcome could be a vital sign for the 2015 federal election. The directional choice Ontario voters made last week should not be taken lightly. It should induce federal political parties to think long and hard about the economic agenda they put forward next year, on the assumption that Ontario will be the decisive battleground in that campaign, as it has been in the last several general elections, wrote Eugene Lang, BMO Visiting Fellow, School of Public and International Affairs at Glendon College, in the Toronto Star June 18. Read full story.