By: Brooke Timpson
Online education in colleges and universities is about to become a lot more accessible, according to the province.
Politicians on both sides of the legislature agree: improving the organization and availability of online courses for colleges and universities is an absolute must.
“Being globally competitive requires [offering students] the best possible quality education,” said Brad Duguid, minister of Training, Colleges and Universities. “Other jurisdictions around the world look at improving technology in the classrooms and it’s important that [Ontario] does too.”
Quality, not savings, is at the top of the priority list for everyone, according to the feedback the Ministry of Training has received.
From July to August, Duguid held roundtable discussions and meetings with Ontario’s teacher unions about the direction and effectiveness of Internet-accessed post-secondary education.
“There is a deep concern for these [online] tools to be used properly,” said Emily Visser, who handles communications for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU).
“We need to make sure that these plans are fair for students and the educators. We can’t have huge classes with over 500 students and inadequate person-to-person contact just to save money.”
OPSEU represents over 7300 teaching professionals in Ontario’s 24 colleges and has joined the government’s conversation on how to best implement online coursework in schools.
If these courses are designed properly, they can be just as successful as a course in a physical classroom, said OPSEU’s Colleges Academic Divisional executive chair, Benoit Dupuis.
“We need to make sure that the proper amount of time, planning and resources is used to help students succeed in these classes and we will be working with the minister to do so,” he said.
Ontario Progressive Conservative critic for the Ministry of Training for Colleges and Universities, Rob Leone, also agrees with the government’s direction towards increased availability of virtual education.
“There’s a good degree of debate about how online education can be employed,” said Leone. “Not only can online classes help reach students in remote parts of the province, it can help compliment a student’s overall education.”
“We still need to explain to students why their tuition is constantly going up,” said Leone, “and we still need to have discussions on other ways to cut costs.”
After a summer of discussion, the government and unions are still very much in the negotiation phase of these objectives.
“My goal is to see these ideas be introduced to schools in a short period of time,” said Duguid. “We’re taking the time to sit with OPSEU and other unions to work together on and listen to their feedback on these issues.”
Further negotiations are set to take place between the province and unions in 2014.