Toronto (Canada) | Secondary school students in Ontario will be required to attend at least four of the 30 online courses available in the next school year in order to learn modern forms of learning and confident online behavior. Concrete content for the online courses has not yet been determined. In addition, the average class size is to be increased from currently 22 to 28 students. These plans by Education Minister Lisa Thompson were recently made public. The change will affect all students in the country’s most populous province and thus almost 39% of Canada’s population.
The changes will cause disgruntlement among teachers. Erin Roy says “It’s not sustainable, it’s not manageable” and fears that Ontario’s education system will lose its world-class status with these changes. Basically, it’s the financial savings that are worrying teachers. The Toronto District School Board even fears the loss of more than 1000 teaching positions. Government member Doug Ford appeases and says that “nobody” will lose his job.
There is a divided picture among the students – some see benefits in the changes, others evaluate the change neutrally and still others see a stress factor in the change. The tenth-grader Aiden Zalisko says: “I feel like I’d be more productive at home working online than in school, because sometimes the classrooms can be a little loud and noisy, it’s hard to concentrate”.
For the majority of Canadian students, digital mediation is likely to become part of everyday life, from which they should benefit in their professional lives. Quite simply because they can confidently deal with the usual forms of in-company training. Chapeau!
Image: © ake1150 – stock.adobe.com
