Teaching Evaluations Require Change

ANALYSIS: An arbitrator has ruled that Ryerson University will no longer be able to use student evaluations of teaching (SET) to make decisions about hiring and promotions.

Unions say that SETs force instructors to go easy on students in the hopes of getting higher scores. Unions say students aren’t reliable judges of how much they’ve learned. They argue that SETs can be influenced by racial or gender biases.

Arbitrator William Kaplan looked at testimony from experts on SETs and concluded that the evidence “establishes, with little ambiguity, that [this] key tool in assessing teaching effectiveness is flawed.

Read the entire article here:

https://tvo.org/article/current-affairs/why-teaching-evaluations-might-not-be-a-good-way-to-evaluate-teaching

Saudi Arabia is pulling thousands of students out of Canada.

Saudi Arabia Is Pulling Students From Canada in Escalating Dispute Over Human Rights

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/saudi-arabia-is-pulling-thousands-of-students-from-canada-in-escalating-dispute-over-human-rights/vp-BBLzZfL

The Saudi Arabian government plans to withdraw all Saudi students it has been sponsoring at Canadian universities, colleges and other schools in retaliation for Canada criticizing the Islamic kingdom’s human-rights record.

A Saudi government source, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said on Monday more than 15,000 Saudis study in Canada on scholarships, grants or in trainee programs funded by Riyadh. Accompanying family members bring the number to 20,000 or more.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-saudi-arabia-to-withdraw-all-saudi-students-studying-at-canadian/

More than 150 students at the University of Regina are being told they have a month to leave the country after officials in Saudi Arabia announced a plan to move thousands of Saudi scholarship students out of Canadian schools

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/saudi-arabia-university-students-scholarships-withdrawn-1.4776121

Saudi Arabia has kicked out the Canadian ambassador, plans to pull out thousands of students and medical patients from Canada and is suspending Saudi state airline flights to Toronto

https://globalnews.ca/news/4378208/canada-saudi-arabia-spat/

The debacle highlights how important international students have become to Ontario’s economy. Including those studying in the K-12 system, language schools, and colleges and universities, there are now an estimated 150,000 international students in the province. Collectively, they contribute an estimated $5.68 billion to Ontario’s economy each year.

https://tvo.org/article/current-affairs/why-ontario-universities-shouldnt-rely-on-international-students

Fairness for International Students

International students look to Canada for an opportunity to access one of the top ranked 

countries for higher education in the world. 

Canada’s excellent reputation is being used by governments and institutions to recruit 

more and more international students to fill the gaps in funding with inflated and 

predatory tuition fees.

In BC, as in most of Canada, international tuition fees are unregulated and can increase at any time, with no notice. Domestic student tuition fee increases are capped at 2% annually under the BC government’s Tuition Fee Limit Policy. Meanwhile, tuition fees for international students in BC have increased by 64% since 2006.

Read more about the BC Students campaign here: