Canadian Universities are moving classes online for the Fall Semester. Then there is the social experience of university life for the institutions to figure out. There is debate about tuition fees and students wanting to get their money's worth - not just online courses.
For international students it's possible they might enrol and take part from their home countries. Students from India and China account for half of international students in Canada. There are 500,000 international students. The economic impact of their presence is more than $22-billion. Nearly 54,000 people who studied at Canadian institutions became permanent residents in 2018.
We could see full enrolment in universities and colleges in provinces with lower COVID-19 restrictions. Problem provinces like Ontario and Quebec could have lower enrolment with a financial crunch for some universities.
I looked through the University Affairs News of COVID-19 updates. It reveals the complex businesses of universities. Included will be $450 million in federal funding to maintain essential research-related activities, like safe handling and storage of dangerous materials during closures. There are 15,000 academic researchers and lab workers in Canada.
The volume of disruptions from small to significantly large is starting to take effect. We are moving out of the 'pause' experience phase. Now the institutions and industries will be scrambling to adapt. Can universities go online as successfully as the banking industry? All that time at home will seem like a dream as university employees start to work long hours getting things in place for September.
There is no train meet this year. It would be this weekend. Bruce, the originator, decided to not offer it for the first time since it started - about 35 years ago. Then COVID-19 came along and everything stopped anyway. So today's pictures are from last year's visit. Of course, that great sky comes from Skylum.
