We believe that it is vital that the results of academic research produced in universities that receive public money should be available to all through a Creative Commons BY SA licence.
The CBC, Library and Archives Canada, and other appropriate groups should be asked to establish a national media library for educational establishments. A large catalogue of material for students and teachers to make use of would diversify and increase the quality of media material available in education and would save money by centralising administration and technical costs.
Schools should have the freedom to spend their budgets as they see fit and should be encouraged to invest in knowledgeable, enthusiastic and well qualified teachers. Over the last decade we have seen vast sums wasted on expensive school IT systems, often with maintenance, software licensing and other excessive or unnecessary costs attached. To make matters worse, schools are often locked into these costly systems for long periods, reducing schools’ abilities to adapt to new technology and provide the best education to their students. An effort needs to be made to ensure that schools are aware of and can collaborate on the use of free and open source software (FOSS), which could save significant amounts of money within education and redirect it back to teaching.
Class sizes have a measurable impact on the performance of students of all ages. We would set a maximum class size, not as a guideline, but as a requirement for all schools within Canada with exceptions for schools where parents and governors actively want to see larger class sizes and are using some other methods to mitigate any negative impact.
The best time to learn is in the earliest years, but for many people life events can mean that they miss out on education, or due to personal issues they may be incapable of taking full advantage of the education available to them up to the age of 18. We are committed to providing easy access to both basic education and higher education for all; we believe that Canada can build on the excellent foundations already laid by the Open University. University tuition fees should be frozen and eventually scrapped. Tuition fees have a disproportionately negative effect on students from poorer backgrounds, and act as a barrier to intelligent and willing young people’s development to their full academic potential. We believe that a freeze in tuition fees is necessary until a workable grant based, free, or means tested alternative funding method can be agreed on and implemented.