Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is abandoning his grand ambition to have the province's school boards deliver a mandatory single program of child care and full-day learning to four- and five-year olds.

A cornerstone of the government's full-day kindergarten program was that schools were to become one-stop centres for child care and education. Boards were to be solely responsible for all aspects of educating the child, including providing before- and after-school care.

But under proposed legislation the government plans to introduce next year, boards would have the option to allow daycare operators to provide before- and after-school programs.

Mr. McGuinty announced the cancellation of a core component of his signature program on Wednesday. Critics say Ontario's initial approach of having school educators in charge of delivering a comprehensive program to students inside and outside the classroom was what set it apart from other provinces, including British Columbia, Prince Edward Island and Quebec, that already offer or have begun offering full-day kindergarten.

“My disappointment is that we're not going to move ahead with the vision," said Annie Kidder, executive director of the parent group People for Education. “The vision was incredibly exciting."

The architect of the full-day kindergarten program, Charles Pascal, envisioned that children would be able to stay in one place, before and after school and throughout the summer months, and that schools would become hubs of care for families.

Despite vigorous opposition from lobbyists for daycare centres, who faced losing business under the program, and school boards that were reluctant to take on responsibility for providing more care, Mr. McGuinty initially embraced Dr. Pascal's recommendations.

Mr. McGuinty said he plans to tailor full-day kindergarten to suit the needs of parents by giving boards the option of running before- and after-school programs themselves or using third-party daycare providers.

via m.theglobeandmail.com

If companies are unwilling to hire bright young college graduates even at a relatively low salary and minimal benefits, will they ever be willing to hire anybody at all?

Jobs aren’t the whole story. Recent college graduates, those in the labor force with the freshest batch of knowledge and skills, are currently underwater and sinking fast with unprecedented student loan and personal debt. Average student debt for the class of 2008 was $23,200, an increase over four years of about 25%, meaning that students are knee deep in negative equity between their educational investment and actual earnings.

Between inflated student debt and the lack of available jobs for qualified graduates, students are defaulting at an all time high level of 7.2%. From 2008 to 2009, student debt defaults jumped about 30% to $50.8 billion. This earning-to-debt gap not only hurts lending institutions, but also may affect students’ future abilities to borrow – a significant hurdle in our credit driven economy.

via baselinescenario.com