CREDIT: VIVA PANAM!
Students are being encouraged to volunteer for the Toronto Pan Am Games with the added incentive of additional OSAP loan money and more time to pay it off.

The Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities made three announcements earlier this month that will greatly impact students across the province.

Starting with Ontario Online, Minister Brad Duguid described it as an “organization that will now help provide a more co-ordinated approach to online learning to ensure that every student in this province will ultimately get to access globally competitive learning products.”

According to a press release, dated January 13, Ontario Online will operate through three hubs:

- The course hub will offer stateof- the-art online courses that are fully transferrable between participating colleges and universities, giving students more options to earn credits and complete their education.

- The instruction hub will allow institutions to develop and share best practices, research and data on how best to teach online courses.

- The support hub will provide academic and technical assistance to students, instructors and institutions. Duguid added, “Students need this. Students want this. It's ridiculous for a student to have to repeat a course that they've already taken, duplicating their expense and increasing their time.”

The second announcement Duguid spoke about concerned the Pan Am and Para Pan Am Games in 2015.

“We want to encourage as many students as possible to participate in and volunteer for the games,” he said.

The province is allowing close to 4,500 college and university students to receive additional OSAP support, should they choose to volunteer.

“We want to make sure that students who volunteer for the Games and thereby forego any type of income, aren't in any way hurt by that,” said Duguid.

He said it amounts to about $2,800 for the duration of the Games.

Duguid also added that students who graduate in 2015 will also be given an additional six-month grace period following graduation, amounting to a total of one year's grace period before loan payments kick in.

The Minister's third and final announcement referred to the establishment of a new digital credit transfer guideline called ONTransfer (learn more about it at ONTransfer.ca).

“It'll allow students to plug into the database of what their current credentials are, and [with] a push of one button, every institution in the province that would recognize the courses that they take as credits [will appear].”

Duguid said it takes away inconsistencies in credit transfer decisions that we see today. “Ultimately our goal is to have a system across the board, similar core courses first and second year, should at some point in time all be fully transferrable across the system where appropriate.”

To learn more about these initiatives, visit tcu.gov.on.ca/eng/.