All Posts Tagged With: "Nova Scotia"
Nova Scotia presidents’ salaries revealed
Guess who makes $256 per student
Nova Scotia flag by Makaristos on Wikimedia
In September, Nova Scotia’s universities will be required for the first time ever to publish the salaries of all employees who earned $100,000+.
It turns out that will include all 12 of the province’s university presidents, reports CBC News. Combined, the presidents were paid nearly $2.6-million in base salaries to run 11 institutions (NSAC has two presidents).
The schools serve only about 35,000 students total, roughly the same number as the University of Alberta and 20,000 fewer than York University.
Tom Traves of Dalhousie is by far the highest paid at $393,000. That’s unsurprising considering that his institution has more than double the population of the next biggest Nova Scotia university with more than 15,000 full-time students.
Funding cut and tuition to rise in Nova Scotia
Presidents and student groups complain
Nova Scotia flag by Makaristos/Wikimedia
University presidents and student groups in Nova Scotia are angry about a new three-year funding agreement that includes a three per cent funding cut and a three per cent tuition rise, which is roughly equivalent to annual inflation.
After a four per cent cut last year, plus inflation, there is now a $75-million hole in budgets system-wide, John Harker, chairman of the Council of Nova Scotia University Presidents and president of Cape Breton University told the Chronicle Herald.
The Nova Scotia chapter of the Canadian Federation of Students called the agreement “disappointing.” In a release, chair Maxime Audet said this: “tuition fee increases coupled with reductions in government funding means students in Nova Scotia will be paying more and getting less.”
Continue reading Funding cut and tuition to rise in Nova Scotia
Provincial government to cover NSCAD’s deficit
Nova Scotia to give university $2.4 million following financial report
Photo of NSCAD Port Campus courtesy of Rory Hyde on Flickr
The Nova Scotia government announced Tuesday it will cover the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design’s $2.4-million deficit if the school submits a financial plan detailing cost-cutting measures by March 31.
The move follows the release of a 13-page report by former deputy minister Howard Windsor on NSCAD’s financial outlook. The report, released Tuesday, says the 125-year-old school is in “serious financial trouble” and will struggle to accept new students next fall without receiving help.
“NSCAD today is operating at a loss equal to more than 10 per cent of it’s annual budget,” the report says. “The situation is not sustainable.”
Both the province and NSCAD accepted all eight of Windsor’s recommendations, which included giving the school $2.4 million under certain conditions. In the report, Windsor also suggests the university review its programs and spaces on its three campuses and look at ways to collaborate with other post-secondary schools. Windsor did not recommend that NSCAD merge with another school in his report, but he didn’t rule it out either.
It’s a rough time for arts schools: Queen’s University suspended enrolment to its Bachelor of Fine Arts program in November, citing a lack of resources. On Nov. 10, The Council of Ontario Universities disclosed that Fine Arts graduates from the class of 2008 had the lowest average salary of 2010.
College grads outraged that Nova Scotia won’t hire them
Students feel $22,000 tuition was wasted
George Dean, a graduate from Eastern College in Dartmouth, N.S. told the Chronicle Herald that he feels he has wasted two years of his life and $22,000 because he can’t apply for the type of job he planned to apply to when he signed up for the program.
The Nova Scotia Community Services Department, where he had hoped to work, recently informed students that their child and youth care credentials from the private college aren’t good enough to apply for jobs working with behaviourly-challenged children and youth.
The policy against hiring grads from private colleges has been in place since 2000, according to Janet Nearing, the province’s acting director of child welfare. But that it only applies only to 23 specialized facilities and that students may apply there after they gain some job experience, she said. There are more than 500 other childcare centres in the province where they are qualified to apply.
N.S. throws money at students
Provincial budget geared at keeping students in the province
Nova Scotia’s budget does some amazing things for students. It reduces tuition by more than $1,000 per year. It institutes a debt cap, making sure that nobody gets in too deep. It even adds to textbook credits and improves the earning allowance.
And the province had better keep up the good work, or they won’t have any students left to serve. More than 60 per cent of the province’s population is over 30 years old and post-secondary enrolment is dropping steadily from year to year.
Ask the province’s student organizations what the reason is and they point to one thing: Out-migration to escape debt.
The Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations wrote to provincial MLAs this year:
“A 2009 survey of over 1,500 students done by the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations suggested that students with over $26,000 in debt were 20 per cent more likely to leave the province after graduation.”
Studies have consistently said that students saddled with enormous debt loads at graduation are less likely to contribute to the wider economy by buying a house or a car.
Nova Scotia’s budget is wisely trying to stem the tide of students heading out of province to study and, afterward, work. In doing so, they’re trying to save their own economic future. Expect this to be the first salvo in a running war to convince students to not only study in Nova Scotia, but also build their lives there.
Report seeks to gut Nova Scotia universities
The O’Neill Report needs to go in a drawer right now.
Nova Scotians have lots to be proud of: stunning natural vistas, rich cultural heritage, and a network of universities that, considering the population, is unmatched in Canada.
That last one is under attack, and the first blast of the trumpet was sounded on Friday.
Tim O’Neill’s long-awaited report on Nova Scotia’s university system is out, and rather than offering ways to sustain or enhance one of the province’s social and economic advantages, it reaches for the same old hammer of economists and managers alike: cut, cut, cut.
O’Neill couches his recommendations in conditional phrases and other weasel words, but the pattern quickly becomes clear: never mind the long term consequences, let’s save money where we can right now. Indeed, that principle, long term pain for short term gain, is specifically invoked in his discussion of the idea of a University of Halifax system, an idea that other experts cite as the best opportunity to really save:
While the concept of a University of Halifax is both more logical and more appealing than that of a University of Nova Scotia, it is too large a consolidation effort to contemplate, at least in the current environment. For a government faced with having to impose fiscal restraint, the transition costs for a merger of six institutions would be far too high to seriously contemplate.
A solution that is logical and effective? Never mind that — there’s an election in a few years.
Though the report pretends its recommended changes are modest, they, could, if fully implemented, and adjusting for the bureaucratese in which the document is written, include:
1.Merge the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design with Dalhousie
2. Merge the Nova Scotia Agricultural College with Dal and lower funding accordingly.
3. Merge Mount Saint Vincent University with Dal or St Mary’s
4. Make Cape Breton University a technical/transfer college
5. Move Universite Sainte Anne to Halifax
6. Drastically increase tuitions
Modest changes? Hardly. O’Neill’s report would see six institutions change dramatically and affect every single student in the province.
Many of these changes involve mergers which would, one hopes, see most programs remain in tact. The exception is that of Cape Breton University. As a Cape Breton native, O’Neill surely knows that returning higher education on the island to the bad old days of a technical school and a transfer college would be met with fierce opposition, so he pretends not to say it even as he proposes it:
With respect to how to reduce its offerings, CBU could consider eliminating whole programs. An alternative approach would be to eliminate four-year degrees in those areas where it may determine it has more limited capacity to compete. Instead, the first two years of the programs would be offered and arrangements made with other universities to accept the students who have completed these two years into the balance of a four-year degree program. However, this is not a proposal that CBU turn back the clock to its former status as a two-year institution or a junior college. It would still offer degrees, but in a more limited number of areas.
This is classic Orwellian Newspeak. O’Neill proposes canceling programs, turning programs into 2-year transfer options, and then washes his hands by claiming he does not want to “turn back the clock.” But of course, a college with limited degree options and transfer programs was exactly what Cape Breton had in the early 1970s before the formation of what was then UCCB. So O’Neill doesn’t want to turn back the clock; he just wants to go back in time.
Remember that CBU already offers a limited number of offerings as it is: many programs available as 4-year degrees elsewhere (Physics, Classics, Geography, French, Engineering to name just a few) are not available at CBU. To pretend that CBU could continue to call itself a university with significant program reductions at this point is disingenuous. At best, it would survive as a polytechnic school, though O’Neill probably avoids that word, since something similar was proposed for New Brunswick a few years ago and had to be abandoned after being met with public outrage. If O’Neill is seriously maintaining that there should be no genuine university to serve Nova Scotia’s second largest population centre, which he certainly is, he should say so plainly.
These recommendations are particularly egregious since O’Neill is proposing drastically reducing access to university programs in Nova Scotia while at the same time arguing that they should cost students much more. And this after Nova Scotians have already had their taxes raised, taxes that I thought were to help pay for things like education. And what consultant proposed that tax hike? The very same Tim O’Neill.
What we need are thinkers who understand how important universities are to a province and make policy suggestions accordingly. We need more views like this:
Nova Scotia benefits from a strong university system that delivers quality teaching to its students along with research that enhances the environment for innovation. Universities also improve the economic, social and cultural life of the communities in which they operate. [We need] to identify policy options which ensure the long-term viability of the university sector.
And what enlightened observer said that? That’s the very same Tim O’Neill, before he wrote the report. Apparently O’Neill has a strange idea about what “long term” means and what “viability” means. Of course, he didn’t say long term viability for everyone.
It’s worth noting that the government’s own release on the report ignores the biggest potential changes such as eviscerating CBU. One hopes that this is because they know they are non-starters. Put another way, at some point, Nova Scotia’s NDP are going to have to start acting like New Democrats.
To be sure, my own view is that of one person and is necessarily biased. But if bias is the issue, why is so much weight being placed on the necessarily biased view of one bank executive?
I maintain that smart public policy means investing in the long term and playing to one’s strengths. The Nova Scotia university system is one of the province’s strong points. It should be understood as an indispensable component of future prosperity, not a series of bank accounts to be tidied up or emptied. That approach is nothing to be proud of.
Why a Nova Scotia school strike won’t hurt students
I always feared Nova Scotia English students were not expected to learn anything. Now I have proof.
Support staff for Nova Scotia schools may soon be walking out, and this has raised concerns about, among other things, high school students preparing to write their provincial exams. This led me to wonder what the students might be missing, and so I looked into the exams and what they entail. Since I am an English professor, I decided to look into the English exam.
If the English exams are any indication of what students are expected to learn, they don’t have much to worry about. The exams don’t expect them to have learned anything at all.
The English poetry sample questions provided on the NS Government’s web site give a poem, sample questions about the poem, and sample answers to guide the teachers’ grading. The sample poem in this case features a speaker recalling childhood days, eagerly waiting for a father to come home from work. Not a great poem, but no matter. What about the questions? Half of them are odd multiple choice questions. Odd because, it seems to me they ask for specific answers about broad questions. “How does the boy feel about his father?’ one asks. “Excited” or “Sentimental”? Clearly both, it seems to me. And besides, nothing in the poem says it’s a boy. But that’s not the worst of it. Then come short answer questions.
The first short answer in the guide is wrong. The question asks how long it as been since the events described in the poem, with the correct answer being “about fifty years.” But what the poem actually says, it that it has been more than fifty years — it doesn’t say how much more. But that’s a quibble about a boring question. Were any of the questions good questions? Did any expect answers that required real thought? At first I thought I had found one that was:
Re-read lines 18-20 and explain the meaning of “nail-etched.”
For your information, here are the relevant lines from the poem, in which the speaker describes the father’s lunch bucket, a recurring image in the poem:
he loomed
before me and set down
the metal bucket, his name
nail-etched with pride
in the black enamel
Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere. This question actually asks the student to consider issues of meaning. They have to look at the poem symbolically, pay attention to detail. This is good.
Here is what I would expect a good high school short answer to look like:
The father’s name scratched into the lunch box suggests confidence in himself. The author says he takes “pride” in it, meaning that he values himself enough to identify his lunch box as his. He also sees himself as not just another worker. The fact that he used something as basic as a nail tells us that he takes simple and direct approach to what he does in life. The name is probably not neatly done (it would be difficult to scratch neatly into enamel) but it doesn’t matter to him or his child. They both value him for who he is.
This is not what I would write, mind you, or even what I would expect my university-level English students to write. I see this as something a reasonably smart high school student with a good understanding of what a poem is could do.
Here is — and I’m not even kidding — the entire suggested sample answer:
Scratched/engraved/drawn with a nail.
I swore when I read that. Out loud. It’s not even a sentence. And all that the students need to say about “nail-etched” is that it means “scratched with a nail?” That’s it? What else could “nail-etched” mean? “Massaged with a balloon?” All it really asks is that the students can figure out what “etched” means which, even if they didn’t know, is plain from context. All the question really asks is, “You want your name on a lunchbox. You have a nail. What do you do?” Should I even mention that this test counts for 30 per cent of a student’s grade?
God forbid a school strike should prevent students from being properly prepared for these exams. They might miss their chance to demonstrate how little they are expected to know.
Black students in N.S. face barriers to PSE
An “alarming” number of black students in special programs, making it difficult to access scholarships
An “alarming number” of Nova Scotia’s 4,000 black students are placed in special programs for students with academic difficulties, according to a report for the provincial government released Thursday. Enid Lee, the report’s lead author and a consultant in anti-racism education, said it’s difficult to know exactly how many teenagers are being incorrectly placed in the programs, known as Individual Program Plans.
Lee said that’s because school boards don’t keep records identifying the race of their students. But she said she based her conclusion after seven focus groups in high schools across the province during which she consistently heard from parents who wondered how to get their teenagers out of the special programs.
“Every focus group we met with . . . there were groups of people in them where parents said, ‘I have a kid in the Individual Program Plan, and I’m not sure if you can get off of it,”‘ she told a news conference.
Lee, who has 40 years of classroom experience, said it’s difficult to get out of the special programs and return to the regular stream where a black student can earn scholarships. “Such plans. . . are regarded by many of those interviewed as barriers to academically rigorous programs as well as to accessing scholarships specifically designated for African Nova Scotian learners,” she wrote in the 107-page report.
Her report recommends the province identify the number of black students in the special programs, and then look at ways to help them get back into the regular stream. It also identifies a general shortage of information on black students—such as how many graduate from school—because school boards say they aren’t able to collect the statistics.
Irving Carvery, the chairman of the Halifax Regional School Board, said his board has attempted to track students based on race. But he said he often found that students didn’t fill out the forms that asked for that information.
“There are a number of reasons why they don’t,” Carvery said. “It’s historical. It’s complex.” The report comes 15 years after the provincial government at the time acknowledged the school system needed to combat racial inequality.
It examined 12 programs that were created by the province after a 1994 report by the Black Learners Advisory Committee, a delegation of community leaders and educators.
N.S. community college strike averted
Tentative deal reached in last-minute talks; 25,000 students would have been affected
Students at Nova Scotia’s community colleges expressed relief Monday after last-ditch talks produced a tentative deal that averted a strike by 900 college workers.
Nova Scotia Teachers Union president Alexis Allen confirmed that an agreement was reached by the two sides late Sunday night, meaning her membership would not be setting up picket lines on Tuesday.
Allen said she couldn’t release details, but added that the union would now go to its membership with a proposal that it recommends they accept.
“It’s not a total surprise in the sense that we’ve always been trying to see what we could do, and I think we just came to an agreement that hopefully the members will accept,” Allen said in an interview Monday.
No date has been set for a ratification vote but Allen said that would likely be done soon.
She said over the next couple of days union staff will go to the province’s 13 college campuses to brief the union membership on the agreement’s details.
On campuses, students said they were pleased their education wouldn’t be interrupted.
A strike would have affected 25,000 students across the province, including Brynn Langille, 20, who is majoring in broadcast journalism at the community college in Dartmouth, N.S.
“A couple of us were looking forward to maybe a couple of days off, but it looks like it (a strike) would have stretched out longer had it happened,” she said. “So, we were getting kind of worried if we were to miss a month or two, definitely.”
She expressed hope the new deal would be acceptable to the union, given that students would end up losing valuable time and money if a strike is the end result.
N.S. college union calls for arbitration as strike date set
Walkout would suspend class for 25,000 students at 13 campuses across the province
The union representing community college workers in Nova Scotia is calling for binding arbitration to avert a strike by faculty and staff.
The Nova Scotia Teachers Union suggested the move Thursday as it set a date of Oct. 20 for a possible strike to back contract demands. “Binding arbitration will allow the parties to reach a negotiated settlement without resorting to a strike,” said union president Alexis Allen.
A walkout would result in the suspension of classes for about 25,000 students at 13 campuses across the province.
In a news release Friday, college spokeswoman Gina Brown left the door open to arbitration. She said the college “will explore this possibility as an option in our ongoing efforts to achieve a resolution, preferably without a strike.”
In the event of a strike, Brown said classes would be suspended but all campuses would remain open, supported by more than 1,000 employees who would continue to work. Students would have access to libraries, bookstores, computer labs, cafeterias, classrooms and other facilities.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Marilyn More said Thursday her department would honour the collective bargaining process and doesn’t plan to intercede.
“The collective bargaining process guarantees certain steps and a strike is one of them,” she said. “We don’t plan to interfere.”
The 900 faculty and staff represented by the Nova Scotia Teachers Union have been in a stalemate in negotiations for a new contract for months.
The union is demanding the same 2.9 per cent salary increase given to public school teachers last year, along with similar improvements to medical benefits. The province is offering one per cent.
Deputy premier Frank Corbett said Thursday it’s up to the two sides to hammer out a deal with what’s already on the table. “They know the size of the pile of money so if they want to be more creative around that in negotiations we certainly can work around that,” he said.
Corbett, who is also minister for the Public Service Commission, said to his knowledge the government doesn’t plan to come up with more money to avoid a strike.
Community college workers, who voted more than 90 per cent in favour of strike action last month, have been without a contract since August 2008.
- The Canadian Press
Date set for St. Francis Xavier students facing assault charges
Three members of university basketball team will be tried together in court Nov. 26
Three members of a Nova Scotia university men’s basketball team will be tried together on all charges stemming from an altercation.
The charges against the players from St. Francis Xavier University were laid after an incident in Antigonish in February that sent a man to hospital.
In court Monday, Judge John Embree ordered that an additional charge against Tyler Richards, 23, of Dartmouth, N.S., will be heard at a trial tentatively scheduled for Nov. 26.
That’s the same date when all three players will be tried on one count each of assault causing bodily harm.
Richards’ second charge is one count of threatening to use a knife while committing an assault.
Also charged in the case are Eamon Morrissy, 19, of Halifax and William Dunkoh, 19, of Nepean, Ont.
The matter will come back to court July 13, when Morrissy will enter a plea to the charge and the trial date will be confirmed.
Dunkoh and Richards earlier pleaded not guilty to the charges.
- The Canadian Press
McDonough named interim president at Halifax university
Former provincial and federal NDP leader takes the reins at Mount Saint Vincent
Alexa McDonough, the former provincial and federal NDP leader, will be taking over as interim president of Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax starting in August.
McDonough will serve as the university’s president for one year while the school looks for a permanent replacement for former president Kathryn Laurin, who was recently announced as the new president of British Columbia’s Camosun College.
Janet MacMillan, chair of the university’s board of governors, told the CBC that McDonough won’t be just a figurehead.
“She’s very much going to come in and provide the leadership and the continuity,” she said. “We’re in the middle of a capital campaign, so to keep that momentum going is really important to us.”
McDonough became the first woman to lead a recognized political party in Canada when she was elected as the leader of Nova Scotia’s New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1980. She held that position for 14 years, and was elected as the leader of the federal NDP in 1995, where she led until 2003. She was a Member of Parliament for Halifax until 2008.
Last month, she received an honorary degree from MSVU.
Tuition rebates don’t keep graduates, jobs do
But that doesn’t make a very good campaign slogan
Nova Scotia is having a provincial election which means politicians of all stripes are taking out half-baked ideas and promising the world.
A popular half-baked idea across the country these days is tuition rebates for recent graduates who stay in a province or, in the case of Saskatchewan, move to another province.
Lenore Zann, an NDP candidate in the NS election, tells The Truno Daily News that she is confident the NDP’s rebate plan will keep recent graduates in the province.
Sure, it will. Where graduates end up is in no way related to where they can find well-paying jobs with their degrees.
N.S. Liberals promise free tuition to help MD shortage
Gov’t would fund 20 medical students every year for five years, at a cost of $6 million
Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil is promising to offer free tuition to 100 medical school students on the condition they agree to practise as family doctors in under-serviced areas of Nova Scotia. McNeil, campaigning in Halifax for the June 9 election, says a Liberal government would provide tuition for 20 students every year for the next five years, a proposal that would cost more than $6 million to implement.
Under the proposal, doctors taking part in the program would have to be willing to work in under-serviced areas for at least five years.
The Liberal leader says about 50,000 Nova Scotians do not have a doctor.
McNeil says his government would force participants to move to certain areas if none of the participants volunteered to work there.
He says the expectation is that once a doctor is dispatched to an under-serviced area, they will be more likely to stay there once they put down roots in the community.
- The Canadian Press
N.S. Tories promise post-secondary tax credit
Tax plan would save families a whopping $88 every year
Nova Scotia Conservatives are promising to provide a tax credit to match registered education savings plan investments.
Campaigning in the Bedford area on Monday, Premier Rodney MacDonald outlined a proposal he says will give families a head start on the cost of post secondary education.
Under the program, parents would receive a non-refundable tax credit, to a maximum of $1,000, made in the first year of their child’s life.
The premier estimated that would mean up to $88 in actual tax savings for a family.
Asked how much difference that would make to the average family, MacDonald responded that it was “an affordable” promise, and put it in the context of a variety of tax credits now available in areas such as recreational expenses and home renovations.
“Every dollar makes a difference. When you’re out buying groceries or buying diapers for a young child, or investing in your home, or saving for a child’s education, every dollar counts,” he said.
The premier said his hope is that the program will help thousands of families start preparing for their children’s education.
As the province turns towards a more knowledge-based economy, he said a post-secondary education will provide many more opportunities for young people.
“As a government, we lowered 10 taxes and took the provincial tax off of home heating costs to help families make ends meet,” he said.
Energy Minister Barry Barnet attended the news conference in his riding, and argued that he believed the tax savings could allow some students to attend college who might otherwise not be able to afford the cost.
“Eighty-eight dollars is a lot of money to many people, and sometimes it makes the difference between whether somebody can or can’t go to a post-secondary education,” he said.
Ottawa announces $7.9m for research at four Atlantic universities
Dalhousie University set to get $5.2 million for five renewed research chairs
Four universities in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador are getting $7.9 million from Ottawa to fund eight research chairs.
The money is part of a $5.1-billion spending package for science and technology announced in the federal budget.
Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear says $1.4 million will go toward one new chair at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.
Professor Kevin Kelloway is studying effective workplace leadership and what can be done to predict and prevent workplace violence and aggression.
Meanwhile, Dalhousie University will get $5.2 million for five renewed research chairs, Acadia $500,000 for one new chair and Memorial University will get $500,000 for one new chair.
Goodyear says two chairs will also get more than $321,000 from the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
- The Canadian Press
Iggy, that’s a great idea
Ignatieff’s excellent proposal: university funding should follow students across provincial borders
From the Halifax Chronicle Herald’s Q&A with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff:
Q: Post-secondary funding goes to where the student comes from rather than where the student goes to school. Would you change that if you had the chance?
A: I think we should. It won’t be easy because provinces from which the students originate will make a claim that it should stay with them. But I think we ought to encourage and reward the universities that actually attract students from out of province, and there’s a nation-building reason for that. It’s not merely (that) you want to reward Atlantic Canada for having good universities, but you also want to give Canadians, young Canadians, a national experience.
One of the things that builds a nation is, you know, if someone is born in Ontario, spends some time in Atlantic Canada, someone in Atlantic Canada spends some time out in Calgary. So we ought to have a financing system that incentivizes that, that encourages (us) to create a generation of Canadians that have national experience.
Provinces like Nova Scotia get the short end of the stick in the current system. The province has such a strong network of successful universities that it attracts thousands of students from across the country — but instead of that being a success story, it’s a budgetary problem for Nova Scotia. Why? Because when a B.C. student goes to school at St. Francis Xavier or Dalhousie, B.C.’s higher education tax dollars (and federal dollars transfered to BC) don’t follow that student. The government of Nova Scotia, a net importer of students, ends up footing the bill. As a result, Nova Scotia’s most successful industry—higher education—is a drain on the province’s budget and a perennial problem. The system’s upside down.
This idea of having funding follow university students has been around for decades. I was advocating it way back in the last century, when I was writing Globe and Mail editorials. But it’s never had a chance to grow tired. It’s never been tried.
N.S. grads with disabilities find jobs at same rate as other grads
Average salaries are also about the same as those who are not disabled
A Nova Scotia government survey has found that college and university graduates with disabilities are finding jobs at a rate equal to their peers who are not disabled. The provincial study was conducted last year and looked at 259 former students from the 2005-06 academic year.
The Education Department says 81 per cent of graduates with disabilities were working and another seven per cent were about to start a job.
The total, 88 per cent, is about the same as the 89 per cent of people between 25 and 49 years old with post-secondary education who were employed.
The students who were surveyed had attended the Nova Scotia Community College or a university in Nova Scotia – 195 had graduated while 64 withdrew before graduating.
The survey also found the salaries of graduates with disabilities are about the same as those who are not disabled.
- The Canadian Press
Nova Scotia to close aboriginal education gap
Mi’kmaq and aboriginal students to get liaison office
Nova Scotia is moving to close what it sees as an educational gap for the province’s Mi’kmaq and aboriginal students. Education Minister Karen Casey has accepted the key recommendations from a review of her department’s Mi’kmaq Services Division.A new Mi’kmaq Liaison Office will be set up and given a stronger voice at the department’s senior management table, Casey said in a release Thursday. “I recognize that the department needs to continue to respond to the changing needs of the community,” said Casey. “It is clear to me that we need to improve the level of service we provide Mi’kmaq and other aboriginal students.”
The review, which concluded in October, recommended improvements in five key areas, including communications, structure, policy, service delivery and curriculum. The liason office’s responsibilities will expand beyond supporting students in public schools to include post-secondary education and skills training.
It will also help identify educational needs for aboriginal students and develop programs to address them.
The minister’s response calls for the development of a provincewide Mi’kmaq Student Support Worker Network and provides opportunity for more direct community involvement in development of language curriculum.
Daniel Paul, chair of the Council on Mi’kmaq Education, said he was pleased with the minister’s response.
“It is a very positive move,” he said. “The Mi’kmaq community will now have a stronger role in the educational decision-making process for our students, he said.
Representatives from Nova Scotia’s 13 First Nations bands, the Native Council of Nova Scotia, the Council on Mi’kmaq Education and the Mi’kmaq Native Friendship Centre were all consulted.
-with a report from CP
