Ontario students overwhelmingly disagree with the Ford government’s plan that will force them to earn four online courses in high school to graduate, says a new survey obtained by the Star.The survey, by the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association, found almost 95 per cent of the 6,087 respondents said they “disapprove of the new e-learning mandate” set to begin in 2020.“The (plan) did come out of nowhere, and students are the biggest group impacted,” said president Sally Meseret, a student trustee on the Durham District School Board. “I was disappointed that students were not consulted.”The association is calling on the government to reverse course because the e-learning plan “has huge implications … if students don’t get these four credits, they can’t graduate,” said Meseret, a Grade 12 student at Whitby’s Donald A. Wilson Secondary School.Previous education minister Lisa Thompson announced the requirement for online courses last March as part of a larger overhaul that she said would modernize education and “embrace technology.”The changes will also usher in larger class sizes for students starting in Grade 4. In high school, average class sizes will jump from 22 to 28 over the next four years. In total, the province will lose about 3,500 teaching positions.According to polls, the moves are highly unpopular with the public, and critics point out there is no Canadian or U.S. jurisdiction that requires four online courses. A handful of U.S. states mandate one; others simply recommend it.Alexandra Adamo, spokesperson for Education Minister Stephen Lecce, said the government is going ahead with the plan. “We will be continuing to listen to stakeholders — most especially our student leaders — to develop a world leading e-learning system for implementation in September 2020 that provides flexibility to ensure students can learn using this modern and digita ...
|
