VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The 20th European Access Network Conference is going to address a very interesting topic this year – “Student Diversity in Higher Education: Conflicting Realities” (Tensions affecting policy and action to widen access and participation). The Call for Proposals for presentations is open until April 15, 2011.
You can find more information about this interesting event on the EAN website .
Another interesting article written by Mike Pereira, YMCA volunteer.
The use of social media by access workers is a hot topic. Many organizations are looking at this new trend and weighing the pros and the cons of jumping onboard. These debates are similar to the arguments that happened when the Internet was first introduced. Some groups became early adopters and other organizations resisted until they were forced into the technology. The same is true with social media. Many of the concerns about safety, privacy, cost, value for money, acceptable use, and safeguarding the reputation of the organization, are exactly the same ones once used to delay creating a website in the 1990s. Likewise, many of the reasons used to justify having a website also apply to having a presence on social media.
Social Media represents a range of communications tools that are used on the Internet that enable people to self publish and interact with each other. A web page is a static document that broadcasts information. An email is an exchange between two people or a person and a list of recipients they have copied on the message. Conversely, tool such as Blogs (web logs), Facebook, and Twitter, enable content to be broadcast, shared, and allow interaction by content subscribers. Increasingly, people are accessing social media without using their computer. These services are popular on data enabled cell phones (smart phones). Recent stats show that some youth access social media many times per day.
November 15 – November 19, 2010
Information about a great upcoming event
(from www.crediteducationweekcanada.com):
| “Canada’s 4th annual Credit Education Week promises to teach you everything you need to know about managing your money and taking control of your financial future. This year, Credit Education Week will focus on newcomers. You will learn some interesting facts about how you can spend and save, and along the way, discover some important lessons that will help your finances.
Supported by leaders within the financial services industry, consumer advocacy groups, community organizations and government, this week-long event will give you free access to financial advice and resources from Canada’s leading experts. If you want to learn how to be smart with your money, just join us during Credit Education Week Canada 2010.” |
The poverty rate is closely correlated with post-secondary education.
While the median wealth of young families fell by half between 1984 and 2005, it rose by almost 40% for those in which the major income recipient was a university graduate aged 35 to 54.
[Morissette, René & Zhang, Xuelin. "Revisiting Wealth Inequality" in Perspectives on Labour and Income."]
It’s a sobering statistic: the poverty rate is twice as high for families headed by someone without a university degree as it is for those headed by a university graduate. Even more striking is that the income gap between university graduates and those without a degree is growing—this graph shows just how much over the past twenty-five years:
Data from "Revisiting Wealth Inequality"; charts created by CPSAP.
Education is one key component of overall well-being; health and prosperity increase as education levels rise.
Most of us know that education is correlated with higher incomes, increased social mobility, and expanded employment options. These are all important benefits—both to individuals (who experience greater control over their lives and increased stability) and to society at large (which is more productive and competitive when it has a well-educated workforce).
But there are many other benefits of education, as well, ones which are at least as important as the economic advantages. One of these is that education is what is known as a social determinant of health—it’s one key non-medical factor in people’s health and well-being. (Canada is one of the countries spearheading research into the social determinants of health.) 
So, for instance, Health Canada tells us that: “Researchers have known for a long time, by studying the relationships between variables, that social factors and health are correlated. It is not news, for instance, that people with high income and education levels tend to be healthier and live longer than people who fall lower on the socioeconomic scale” (emphasis added). Moreover, this effect is non-trivial. According to research presented to the Canadian parliament, “Research has estimated that 15% of the population’s health is attributable to biology and genetic factors, 10% to the physical environment, 25% to the reparative work of the health care system, while, fully 50% is attributable to the social and economic environment” (see chart).
How does education affect health?
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How information deficits discourage high school students from pursuing post-secondary education.
One the last documents issued by the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation was a report titled “An Examination of Barriers to pursuing PSE and Potential Solutions.” Put together by Ekos Research in 2009, the report discusses the concerns expressed by high school students who had decided not to pursue further studies. It’s a fascinating analysis, and is available in full here, but practicioners who are specifically concerned with access issues, and especially for those who are concerned with CPSAP’s kind of programming, here are some of the most pertinent findings…
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You Can Go covered by the Ontario College of Teachers.
Though this article appeared a little while ago now, this dandy little blog we’ve got is new, and so we thought we’d take this opportunity to let you know about it. Professionally Speaking, the magazine issued by the Ontario College of Teachers, had a nice little update on You Can Go and its successes. The full article is available online right here—just scroll down to the bottom of the page to find it!
Sometimes, face-to-face really is the best way to learn.
One of the great ways of learning about best practices in any field is via conferences, by talking with colleagues in person and asking others questions about their work in real time. The CPSAP inaugural conference, called “Prepared Minds, Prepared Places,” was held in Toronto in October 2009. It was a great success, and we were thrilled to see so many of you there. With more than three hundred participants attending and presenting, lots of information and expertise was shared in just a few short days. In fact, our biggest problem was that people found so much of interest that they couldn’t get to everything they wanted. (As one of the participants said: “it would be great to be able to attend three presentations at the same time.”)
Sad that you missed it? Well, the good news is that all the presentations are available online.
And while we’re on the subject, we’d also like to let you know about two upcoming international conferences on post-secondary education access and success:
Both the European Access Network and National College Access Network have helped shape what CPSAP is today. The European and U.S. learnings they have shared so generously with us have inspired us to establish a firm footing for services in Canada. Both EAN and NCAN conferences routinely provide a wealth of resources and ample opportunities for networking with practitioners from all over the world.
It’s our one month-a-versary!
It has been almost a month since we have launched this blog and we are very happy to report that we’ve gotten great feedback from many people. Our goal is to post bi-monthly, and we very much welcome your contributions as well. (Got a CPSAP story to share? Get in touch with us.) This is a forum for all of us to explore ideas on post-secondary education access, and to share information about successes, best practices, and the challenges we’ve encountered along the way.
This blog is only part of our online presence. On the sidebar to your right you’ll find the link to our websites: www.accesspartenship.ca, www.youcango.ca, and www.onyva.ca.
We have also a Facebook profile. To check that out, just click on the Facebook icon over to the right.
Technology is moving and so are we. Please join us online, and please let us know what you think about all these tools. The more information we share, the better the information we give to our students.
Learn all about CPSAP and the fabulous people who have been involved in our programs.
Today we’re very excited to launch our official Canadian Post-Secondary Access Partnership (CPSAP) blog. We hope this will become the meeting place for everyone whose life has been touched by CPSAP: whether you’re a You Can Go participant we’ve advised, a post-secondary institution in which we’ve placed students, or one of the generous donors who help make all this possible, we’re hoping to hear your stories and have you join in our conversation.
And if you’re not all that familiar with CPSAP…it’s nice to meet you. We’ll be discussing our various initiatives to alleviate post-secondary access challenges, and explaining just what those access needs are along the way. Think of this as a more personal, human-interest introduction to what we’re all about.
So, what is the Canadian Post-Secondary Access Partnership?
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