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.
