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UBC may use Grade 11 transcripts to assess applicants
VANCOUVER SUN MARCH 13, 2012
The University of B.C. says it might use Grade 11 transcripts this year in assessing B.C. applicants who do not have a Grade 12 report card due to teacher job action.
But it’s reassuring students who didn’t do as well last year as this year that Grade 11 marks will not replace Grade 12 marks.
“No student will be disadvantaged by the use of Grade 11 grades,” Andrew Arida, director of undergraduate admissions, said in an interview. “If the substitution of Grade 11 grades works and gets you in, great. If it doesn’t we will not make a final decision on you until we see your full Grade 12 grades in May so there is no detrimental effect of this change in policy – if it’s approved.”
The UBC Senate is expected to decide Wednesday whether the university should accept students based on Grade 11 marks. A similar decision will be made for the UBC Okanagan campus.
As a result of job action, B.C. teachers have not written report cards this year. Their union, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation (BCTF), says students who need marks for post-secondary or scholarship applications need only ask for them.
Read The Vancouver Sun full article here.
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New Book- Leadership Under Fire: The Challenging Role of the Canadian University President
From the publisher’s website:
An insightful commentary on the leadership challenges faced by university presidents and a comprehensive survey of the changing university landscape.
While the role of the university president has evolved dramatically in recent years, the recruitment pool and selection process have changed little since the 1960s. In Leadership Under Fire, Ross H. Paul combines leadership theory, interviews with eleven of Canada’s most successful presidents, and thirty-five years of personal experience to shed light on the complexity and importance of leading a university and identifies some of the critical challenges and opportunities facing Canadian universities today.
Ross H. Paul has held senior leadership positions in four post-secondary institutions in three Canadian provinces over the past thirty-five years, including tenures as president of Laurentian and Windsor Universities.
B.C. teachers promised more money for big classes
Bill 22 would give some teachers in primary grades $2,500 per student
VANCOUVER — Public-school teachers are being promised financial compensation next year if they have extra-large classes.
A controversial bill now working its way through the legislature would give Grades 4-7 teachers an extra $2,500 a year for every student beyond 30 in their classrooms while secondary school teachers, who teach many courses per day, would receive $312 for every student beyond 30 in their courses, the B.C. Education Ministry told The Vancouver Sun.
Furthermore, the ministry is promising to amend school regulations to require principals to consult with teachers, and teachers to advise principals, on all matters related to classroom organization, including the placement of special-needs students. Those discussions will become “core duties” for principals and teachers, a ministry spokesman said.
Teachers in primary grades won’t be eligible for the compensation because their classes will continue to be capped at a maximum of 22 children in kindergarten and 24 students in Grades 1-3.
Teachers for courses such as band and drama, where large student numbers are sometimes desirable, are also not expected to qualify for additional pay.
The ministry says the extra money for teachers would not only compensate them for an added workload but would encourage school administrators to keep classes at 30 students or fewer in order to control costs.
The challenges of large classes with many special-needs students has been a long-standing concern of B.C. teachers, especially since 2002, when the Liberals stripped their union of its right to bargain class size and composition. Last April, the B.C. Supreme Court found the government had violated teachers’ rights and ordered it to remedy the situation within a year.
Read THE VANCOUVER SUN full article here.
By Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun March 9, 2012
jsteffenhagen@vancouversun.com
Are Boys and Girls Ready for the Digital Age?
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released the Programme for International Student Assessment’s Report 12, which investigated if boys and girls are ready for the digital age.
Key findings are:
- More than 17% of students in Australia, Korea and New Zealand are top performers in digital reading, while fewer than 3% of students in Austria, Chile and Poland are.
- On average, girls outperform boys in digital reading; however, the gender gap is narrower than it is in print-reading proficiency.
- Among boys and girls with similar levels of proficiency in print reading, boys tend to have stronger digital navigation skills and therefore score higher in digital reading.
Click here to read the full report.
Constitutional and international law at risk under Bill 22
In 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the government had violated the Canadian Charter by imposing legislative restrictions on the rights of health workers to bargain collectively. In April 2011, the British Columbia Supreme Court followed that decision to rule that legislation concerning teachers was unconstitutional, and thereby invalid, because it prohibited bargaining on class size, class composition and the ratios of teachers to students.
It is those very same restrictions that the government now seeks to reinstate with Bill 22, a disturbing disregard for such a recent judicial declaration that they are constitutionally invalid.
Read THE VANCOUVER SUN full article here.
Joel Bakan teaches in the faculty of law at the University of British Columbia.