Common Ground | Terrain commun Ideas

Fees for so called professional programs need to be brought back down to earth. High fees for programs such as engineering, MBAs, and medical schools create accessibility barriers. Only the well off or those willing to take on enormous debts can participate in these programs.

Mandatory Mental Health Education, from primary to secondary schooling – as we do Physical Education. Help end the stigma surrounding mental health by educating our youth. Mental health is an integral part of our overall health.

It’s time to explore the possibilities of funding students who seek to upskill, develop professionally, and pursue higher education. The reasons for taking on school or training in a part-time basis are numerous and reasonable:
- Working while pursuing further studies can have a reciprocally powerful effect; one stays current in the research thereby becoming more effective in their work, and builds a critical lens for... more »

Job losses will be inevitable as automation technologies advance further. The Government of Ontario should develop a comprehensive strategy to address this issue in its infancy. This strategy could include the establishment of education grants or subsidized tuition for recently laid off workers in need of retraining and a guaranteed universal income study. Cross government and private sector collaboration would also... more »

Accommodation of students with disabilities is one of the most pressing challenges facing our school boards and post-secondary education providers. The current system is based on legislative and common-law requirements that are often confusing for students and families to access and understand.

This proposal seeks to implement an accessibility standards for education providers across Ontario, including the creation of... more »

Education should be a basic human right for every Ontarian, not a bargaining chip for negotiation.

The government took a huge step forward this year with the new Ontario Student Grant taking effect and making post-secondary education accessible to all, regardless of income. This is the next logical step forward to avoiding a public education crisis at every level, elementary, secondary and post-secondary. We need to... more »

For those who missed out on the chance to apply for free post-secondary education and are now saddled with extreme student loan debt, on which interest is still being collected. In order to participate in the economy and have a chance at entering a prohibitively expensive housing market, we need at the very least our student loan interest to be forgiven. Fifteen years paying off a loan we required to be competitive in... more »

I feel that we should get rid of French and English schools and have ALL students learn in French for half the day and learn in English for the other half of the day from JK to grade 12. Many students in European countries speak more than two languages. Canada is a bilingual country and many people are not fluent in both official languages. I feel if children were taught both languages from JK to grade 12, then most people... more »

Ontario spends a lot to educate our kids and anyone who wants to gets skills or education.

Yet we seems to have shortages of certain skills or training that never get addressed - we do not have enough doctors, but there is no shortage of people who want to become doctors, instead the shortage is because of the lack of slots in medical degree programs and in hospital internships needed for a license.

The federal immigration... more »

How many times has a student missed their school bus ?
Mom, dad, parent, guardian I need a ride to school, again.
Or do they just stay home? Or walk?
An app to track school bus would engage our social media savvy students to be aware of bus location, almost never miss a ride again.
An app to track school bus would let school administration & parent/guardian know when a school trip bus was actually returning to school.... more »

I think that we would see a great improvement in student learning if the requirements for becoming a teacher were more stringent. For a number of Faculties of Education, a university student must have only a C+ average in their university courses in order to be eligible to apply for a teaching degree. Once in the Faculty of Education, the student teachers are required to just pass their courses and complete their practical... more »

This idea has been merged with Keep it in the Community.

It used to be that school boards were elected, and had power to levy taxes, and they were run responsibly. Over time we have ended up with dysfunctional school boards and with them not having much power but the province needing to step in because they go into debt or otherwise fail.

We need a commission to review school board governance and funding across the province, as well as the fairness of the way education taxes... more »

Ontario has a responsibility to herself to ensure that the Province and its people are prepared for the future, to both embrace it and to shape it, through the development of an innovation society.

Innovation in technology, or anything, cannot readily be proscribed but is instead the positive by-product of context and conditions.
While society through its governments may create short bursts of research, development,... more »