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Schools
Embrace Big Business To Raise Money in Canada
By Paul Weinberg
Inter Press Service
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TORONTO, Apr 11 (IPS) - What is it about a Canadian public high
school in the Scarborough section here that draws education
officials from such ironhanded countries as Singapore, China
and Russia to come and rave that this is what they want to be?
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It is school principal, Mark Booth's, success in reinventing
the school four years ago when the W.A. Porter Collegiate became
the Scarborough Academy for Technological, Environmental and
Computer Education (SATEC). |
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When he took over, the school had a falling enrollment of
600 students. A self-styled entrepreneur, his efforts to raise
money and profile for his school, has turned it into a ''high
tech academy'', a publicly-funded institution that functions
more or less like a private school.
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Today, SATEC has about 900 students and some 600 applications
for 300 grade nine spots each year from across the city. |
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What makes SATEC a winner in the harsh competition for students
and funding within the Toronto District School Board, where
school closures, shortages of supplies and the prospect of
further funding cuts are already stressing Canada's largest
school system?
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Booth has recruited corporate partners for extra funding and
to enhance the reputation of his school to keep it off the list
of schools up for closing. |
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But the very success of SATEC has some observers worried that
the public education system in Toronto and in other cash-strapped
school systems across Canada are abandoning the idea that
all children are entitled to the same quality of education.
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SATEC is way ahead in the contest for corporate partnerships,
but this is of increasing concern to those who believe profit-driven
companies already have too much influence over how the taxpayer's
money is spent on education. |
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In 1998, the Toronto District School Board signed a deal with
Cisco Systems, the US-based computer networking products giant,
to introduce its own curriculum on networking fundamentals into
selected high schools. |
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SATEC rushed to join the company's international network of
Cisco Networking Academies. The teachers, trained by Cisco,
instruct the students in how to design, build and manage computer
networks in courses over a two-year period. Upon passing and
gaining their credits, they are qualified to take a test at
an approved Cisco training centre in Toronto. |
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If successful, the students become Cisco Certified Networking
Associates, which qualifies them for networking positions in
the information technology industry. |
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Jacqueline Latter, a parent activist and a spokesperson for
the Ontario Education Alliance is concerned about the trend
towards such corporate partnerships in Canadian schools. |
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She fears that a school system where some institutions are able
to provide better programmes and facilities than others because
of the lobbying capability of a local principal leads one away
from the democratic cornerstone of a universally accessible
education system. |
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This could lead to a ''hierarchy where one little group has
more rights,'' she says. |
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Corporate partnerships are increasingly important as educational
officials and politicians in Canada place a greater emphasis
on instilling computer and technology skills in the school curriculum
to prepare young people for the job market. |
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But children of poorer parents are excluded, says a Toronto
District School Board researcher Maisy Chung. She estimates
from a recent survey that more than 40 percent among lower income
families report no access to a computer in their homes. She
adds in this category, children of immigrant and non-white backgrounds
predominate. |
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More than half of the students attending Toronto high schools
are considered members of a ''visible minority,'' says Chung.
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R.D. Gidney, a professor of education at the University of Western
Ontario defends the emphasis on technology skills and the greater
reliance on corporate partnerships in Canadian schools. ''Business
at least by the late 1980s began to claim that it needed more
influence on what was going on in schools.'' |
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Gidney says he is not crazy about companies writing history
curriculum for a school, but he has no difficulty relying on
companies like Cisco Systems for their latest computer expertise.
''The biggest problems the technical courses have had for decades
are unless you have got a hell of a lot of money like you had
in the 1960s, they fall behind. So you suddenly find yourself
teaching something that nobody in industry uses anymore.'' |
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Others like Bob Davis, author of the forthcoming book, 'Skills
mania: Snake oil in our Schools?' and a retired Toronto high
school history teacher, worries that with the emphasis in education
on how to do various things, the larger context of what is going
on in the world at large is being lost. He finds that many kids
come into the classroom generally confused and ''mixed up about
their basic beliefs.'' |
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Davis bemoans how language skills and mathematics have replaced
basic subjects like literature and history in Canadian schools.
''There is more focus on training for work and less on how to
live in this society and how to live in the political system.''
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This article
is free of copyright restrictions and can be reproduced provided
that Inter Press Service is credited. |
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