Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Canadian universities must reform or perish

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
The Globe and Mail calls for "a Canadian renaissance in undergraduate education," noting that Canada's undergraduate education has weakened and there is an insufficient emphasis on quality. Some parts of the Globe editorial are in dreamland - the bit about having made education "more affordable" in recent years, when exactly the opposite has happened. But this is a laudable objective: "It ought to produce critical thinkers, scientifically and culturally literate people who can assess evidence, connect the dots and communicate with clarity." Whether simply training professors or measuring output will result in this change is questionable. But the editorial is, I think, a symptom of a long-expected loss of patience with the university system as it exists now, and I think that if it doesn't achieve some sort of renaissance, then it will undergo, unwillingly, a reformation.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Nov 04, 2024 3:03 p.m.

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