Canadian Post-Secondary Access Partnership

Ankara Declaration

Adela Colhon — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:17:59 +0000

RESPs and CLBs

Adela Colhon — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:00:17 +0000

We all know how important education is for children to be successful in their lives. One of the first observations people make when talking about post-secondary education is that it’s very expensive.
It’s a challenge to pay for education costs, and often the biggest question parents are faced with is: How soon should I start saving?
Here are some answers and useful tips.
Start saving early with an RESP
Open a Registered Saving Education Plan (RESP) for your child or children, and you can benefit from terrific incentives offered by the government. Apply for the Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG), and the government will deposit an extra percentage depending on your yearly contribution and income to help your child’s savings grow faster.
Anyone can open a RESP on behalf of a child — a parent, family member or friend of the family.
The Canada Learning Bond
Families that are recipients of the National Child Benefit Supplement can receive up to $2,000 in free education money for each of their children born after January 1, 2004. All parents have to do is to open an RESP account. No contribution is required from the parents to receive the bond — they simply must open the account on behalf of the child/ren.
The government will deposit $500 right away into the RESP, and could deposit up to $1,500 more by the time the child is 15 years old. That’s up to $2,000 for a child’s education after high school! This can be a great first step for a young person to consider post-secondary education as an option.
There are many options and providers for RESPs. Visit www.smartsaver.org to find a complete list and more information on RESPs, the CESG and Canada Learning Bond.
It’s never too early to set up your child for success!

Note: The YMCA of Greater Toronto is a partner in the SmartSaver initiative solely as an information provider, and does not sell RESPs or investments.

Credit Education Week Canada

Adela Colhon — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 20:21:25 +0000

During the third week of November, Credit Canada is organizing a series of events with the purpose of giving Canadians further details about financial decisions and their impact.
In the Post–Secondary Education Access work we know how important it is that students and potentials students are aware of good financial management. Paying for tuition, cost of living, getting a loan, using credit cards (just to name a few) all require making informed spending decisions.
During the Credit Education Week, Canadians will have free access to financial literacy tools through a number of interesting events across Canada.

For a complete list of events, exciting contests and details please check the Credit Education Week Canada website.

‘From Providence to Evidence’ Conference

Adela Colhon — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 18:48:28 +0000

The conference is going to support quality development and capacity building. It will underpin policy with current findings from practice within the area of Science in Society activities – where Children’s Universities definitely have been playing a relevant role in since years. Moreover, all this shall be reflected in the light of the individual learning journeys, presented from and issued among participants in SiS activities for children and young people in previous years – who are possibly adult students nowadays.

You can read more details about this exciting event on the SIS website , including the details about the Call for Papers (deadline September 21st, 2011).

Children Shape Science Education in New European Initiative

Adela Colhon — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:41:05 +0000

LIVERPOOL, UK – 26 July 2011: The University of Liverpool has launched a £3.6 million initiative aimed at developing children’s ideas on new science and technology activities at schools, universities, and cultural organisations that will engage young people across Europe.

The Liverpool team are working with universities, as well as education departments at country and regional level, to create new delivery guidelines that will support institutions in developing projects aimed at children from families with ‘non-traditional’ higher education backgrounds. The four-year project involves a consortium of over 30 partners and advisors from across 23 countries. YMCA Canada is an advisor to the project.

Please see the complete SIS Press Release

Social Media – Part 3

Adela Colhon — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 19:16:43 +0000

Twitter is another popular application. It is a “micro blog.” A user posts a short text update of no more than 150 characters long. It is published over the network. Anyone can subscribe to this. Some Twitter users have a large following. It is a powerful source of trend spotting.

This is how the message above might look on Twitter (edited by Admin):
Twitter is a popular application. It is a “micro blog.” A user posts a short text of no more than 150 characters long. It is published over the network. Anyone can subscribe to this.

Who is Professor Fluffy?

Adela Colhon — Tue, 31 May 2011 21:40:56 +0000

Three years ago when we have started delivering services for youth we have soon realized that we have to make sure we reach kids early on with the messaging around Post-Secondary Education and to start from simple things like building the PSE vocabulary.
At the first CPSAP Conference we’ve had a great Key Note Speaker, Tricia Jenkins (University of Liverpool, UK) who presented the tool that we were looking for! This tool is called Professor Fluffy, a great way of introducing Post-Secondary Education as a viable option for young people!

We will talk more about this great tool and how we have used it in Canada in another blog post – but for those who have inquired about it, please check the Professor Fluffy website !

This is a Professor that every child will like!

NCAN Annual Conference

Adela Colhon — Wed, 18 May 2011 19:53:48 +0000

National College Access Network is going to host the annual Conference in St. Louis, Missouri from Monday, September 12 to Wednesday, September 14, 2011.
This is a great event, providing ample opportunities for learning best-practices and networking.
If you would like to find further information about this event or to register please check the NCAN website.

Social Media – Part 2

Adela Colhon — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:25:28 +0000

I’ll talk about the two most popular social networking tools: Facebook and Twitter. There are other services, but Facebook and Twitter are the ones with the largest audiences. The fact that millions of people, especially youth, use these services regularly, and social media now accounts for a greater percentage of ‘online’ activity among users, means we can not ignore social media as a communications vehicle.

FACEBOOK

Facebook is a proprietary service owned by a private company in the United States. It is ‘free’ to users, but supported by advertising revenue. The basic concept is that a user creates a profile, adds a photo, fills in some demographic data, and then links up with all of his or her friends already on the service. Facebook users build a network of “friends” who have mutual access to each others profiles. Facebook is attractive because it is free to use, everyone seems to be on it, the interface makes it easy to setup and post content (photos and text), and there are applications; mostly games, that entice users to make repeat visits.

Facebook provides a means for millions of people to connect together by forming their own social groups and sharing information with each other. They can share photos and communicate instantly. A person in the network can broadcast a ‘status’ update and everyone in the group who is linked to them will get the update. Friends can also add comments to status notes and photos posted by themselves or anyone in their network. These notes and photos then become ‘searchable.’ Among youth as well as other demographics, Facebook is the most popular social networking application on the Internet (to be continued)

The European Access Network 20th Anniversary Conference

Adela Colhon — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:46:26 +0000

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 .