Northern Economist 2.0

Monday 7 September 2020

In Ontario, Its Back to School...and Back to COVID



As the September 2020 edition of Labour Day unfolds, the long summer of 2020 which for many students began in March, comes to an end in Ontario.  It is back to school at the elementary, secondary and post-secondary level and the rush to cram in as many outdoor social opportunities as possible during the good weather also comes to an end.  Like in many other parts of the world, the last few weeks have seen a relaxing of individual behaviour as also noted by pundits such as Andre Picard and the inevitable result has been a creeping up of the daily count of new cases.  The accompanying figure puts the start of the reversal of the downward trend at day 200 which coincides with about mid-August. 
While it appears the uptick in Ontario is being driven by GTA cases, as Picard himself notes, it is difficult to know exactly where or how people are being infected given the obsession of public health authorities in Canada with secrecy.  Sometimes, it would be nice to know when a case is reported in your community if it was due to international travel, inter-provincial travel, connected to a workplace or social event in an effort to personally gauge the threat level but such is not the case.  Of course, it is also difficult to know whether governments and public health agencies in Canada are being secretive or they simply do not have the capability to finely analyze and present data.  The latter possibility is even more disconcerting.
 

Back to school in Ontario will be interesting to watch unfold.  There apparently is a shortage of teachers given the anecdotal stories of retired teachers being phoned up and asked if they would like to come back this fall.  There is also a growing  shortage of school bus drivers.  And parents appear to be surprised that classes are as large as they are given that as much as one third of children will be doing their lessons online.  Of course, it is amazing how little people in general understand about resource allocation and basic economics.  Even online teaching requires teaching resources and they need to come from somewhere and given the anecdotally reported spate of sudden retirements it is no surprise that in-person classes are larger than expected.  Indeed, many JK and SK classes in particular are as large as previous years – that is to say 25 to 30 students.  It would be interesting to have more information and data about class sizes and their distribution, but provincial education ministries and school boards are as secretive as public health authorities.  If anything, the pandemic seems to have accelerated the tendency to less and less accountability on the part of government authorities when it comes to publicly available and accessible data and information. 
At the university level, the early cries of an enrollment collapse in the wake of COVID appear to have evaporated.  Overall enrollment in Ontario at the university level is holding its own and the numbers are good at both the domestic and international student level.  As of the August 2020 update, it would appear that  undergraduate confirmations are up at 107,001 from last year’s 104,635 – that is an increase of 2.2 percent and hardly the apocalyptic collapse many university administrations were articulating.  At my own university, as of this morning the total enrollment statistics showed the total enrollment down by several hundred but the system traditionally lags in presenting information which I think means that enrollment is pretty much on target.  My own first-year class is up 60 percent from last year while my upper year classes are either at the same level of enrollment or actually higher. 
It would appear that online education has actually had the effect of expanding choices for students because in person class schedules – especially at small universities with few sections - often meant there were scheduling conflicts.  I do recall in the past conversations with senior administrators chastising economics for its low undergraduate enrollment and never seeming to acknowledge the point that part of the problem was the class schedule itself given small departments and fewer sections of anything.  At Lakehead, more students seem to be opting for economics because they can actually fit it into their schedules this year. I suppose that is one proverbial silver lining to the COVID cloud.  The other is that universities – like other employers - have downloaded many of their costs onto people working at home and are saving a lot of money on their utilities and operating costs while keeping their tuition fee structure and other funding fully in place.  And unlike private employers, we are apparently not being provided with T2200  to help in the costs of any upgrading internet and computers at home to deal with larger classes.
So, it is September and once again the drama begins.  Another new school year but this time starting under conditions of a global pandemic.  Stay tuned.