Tight labor markets driven by resource booms could increase the opportunity cost of schooling and crowd out human capital formation. For oil-producing economies such as the Province of Alberta, the OPEC oil shocks during the period from 1973 to 1981 may have had an adverse long-term effect on the productivity of the labor force if the oil boom resulted in workers reducing their ultimate investment in human capital rather than merely altering the timing of schooling. The authors analyze the effect of this decade-long oil boom on the long-term human capital investments and productivity for Alberta birth cohorts that were of normal schooling ages before, during, and after the oil boom. Their findings suggest that resource booms may change the timing of schooling but they do not reduce the total accumulation of human capital.

http://www.clsrn.econ.ubc.ca/workingpapers/CLSRN%20Working%20Paper%20no.%2074%20-%20Emery,%20Ferrer,%20Green.pdf

Long-Term Consequences of Natural Resource Booms for Human Capital Accumulation:

/pdf/canadian-labour-market-and-skills-researcher-network-3dc6yshylr.pdf

Canadian Labour Market and Skills Researcher Network

A trend towards a more competitive educational system which is obvious in several countries is expected to increase the rates at which schools, colleges, and universities respond to their environments and to enhance their creativity and innovativeness. To achieve these objectives, various strategies, such as open‐boundary admission policies, have been adopted. Consequently, educational institutions are beginning to adopt marketing strategies to attract students, staff, and funds. This adoption of marketing has several implications. These include harmonising a marketing philosophy with the institutional mission, creating appropriate organisational structures, and implementing marketing strategies.

Marketing Educational Institutions: Implications for Administrators

Postsecondary education in western countries has experienced four major phases in this century. An elite phase persisted until about 1945 when a recon- structionist phase emerged, reflecting a more democratic approach. The third phase of reductions in funding and support characterized the 1980s. Inadequate revenues to meet rising costs, government measures, and institutional efforts to become more market-oriented can be viewed as complementary developments which were largely responsible for the current entrepreneurial phase. Entrepreneurial aspects of postsecondary education include the extent to which users should pay, the balance between market-related and purely acade- mic activities, the relative emphases upon basic and applied research, fund- raising, and greater involvement of institutions and individuals in obtaining patents, licences, and cooperating with sizeable companies. A more entrepre- neurial emphasis has implications for postsecondary administrators, especially in the matters of budget allocations, the need for more training of administra- tors, and increased attention to student needs. While a greater market orienta- tion is warranted, care must be exercised to ensure that the academic mandate remains paramount.

/pdf/entrepreneurial-activities-in-postsecondary-education-5e4bexjz92.pdf

Entrepreneurial Activities in Postsecondary Education

This study explores the judicial articulation between religious liberty and education in Canadian Mennonite communities during the 20th century. The purpose of the study is to demonstrate how specific judicial data are linked to general social contexts and to show that some changes in global social contexts and some local elements have an influence on religious liberty in education for a specific religious community. During the 20th century, we can find three trials involving Mennonite education (R. v. Hildebrand ; R. v. Wiebe ; Bal v. Ontario). These judicial data concerning the Mennonites are understood and interpreted in the Canadian social and historical context of the 20th century. Using these rulings as primary literature, the following question is studied: which socio-legal issues linked to religious freedom and education are relevant to these trials? As a result, the study shows that the articulation between religious liberty and education varies for Mennonites according to four considerations: 1) Mennonite faith; 2) relations with other religious groups in which Mennonites had been engaged; 3) factors related to education in itself, interwoven into a plural society and conceived as a public aspect of the identity construction of individuals; and 4) some specific aspects related to the Canadian constitution. Therefore, it is shown that these four socio-judicial considerations, which were associated with the trials involving Mennonites in education, are all concerned, one way or another, with the articulation of religious liberty and education.
 
Keywords: religious freedom, education, Mennonite, Canada, trial

/pdf/liberte-de-religion-et-education-les-proces-des-mennonites-bp4ocu396z.pdf

A. M. Decore

Papers

Alberta Political Economy in Crisis: Whither Education?