Grade 13 – mackaycartoons

Tuesday May 10, 2022

May 10, 2022 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday May 10, 2022

Ontario Liberals pledge they would bring back Grade 13 on an optional basis

Young Doug Ford: The Series

The Ontario Liberals would reintroduce an optional Grade 13 to allow students to catch up on learning lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, leader Steven Del Duca said on the campaign trail Friday.

The measure that would be brought in if the Liberals were elected next month would not be a “victory lap,” the party leader said, and would be available for a minimum of four years.

“This is going to be a structured option for our kids,” Del Duca said in a park near a high school in Kitchener, Ont.

“Structured so that they can get more mental health supports, so that they can learn more about personal finances, so that they can learn more about civics and citizen engagement and all of the tools that they need to be able to catch up from the past couple of years.”

Tuesday June 17, 2003

June 17, 2003 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 17, 2003

The Year of the Great Student Squish

Universities in Ontario are turning tennis courts into classrooms to handle a surge in students this autumn after the province shortened high school from five years to four and is graduating two classes at once.

The province says the transition is going well, and students will not lose out. But teachers and students say the crush of the so-called double cohort will overload a system that is already strained by education spending cuts.

“The government has pressured the university presidents to put as many students into the university as possible because they promised parents there will be a place for your child. But they don’t say what kind of place.”

Ontario’s Grade 13 has been an anomaly in Canada for almost four decades, adding to education costs in the country’s richest and most populous province. The province decided five years ago to eliminate the added grade and this is its final year. (Reuters)