#Demetrios Nicolaides

[the-quotable-alberta-hansard]

March 27, 2024

Mr. Nicolaides: The only ones who are intent on driving ideology into the curriculum were the NDP when they were in office. They were determined to ensure that social studies creates, quote, agents of change. End quote. That was their objective. They had a very clear ideological objective with the curriculum.

[kimsiever]

At least 22 AB school boards face teacher cuts

Earlier this month, the Alberta Teachers’ Association published a media release on their website. In it, they outlined how more than a third of the province’s 61 school boards (public, Catholic, and francophone) are set to lay off teachers. The ATA analyzed budgets submitted by the school boards to the education minister, Demetrios Nicolaides, who has to approve each one. In their analysis, the…

[college-girl199328]

The University of Lethbridge says a speech by a former Mount Royal University professor fired in 2021 amid an uproar over her controversial comments on residential schools won't be allowed space on campus.

But the academic says she still intends to show up and give her talk entitled, "How "Woke-ism" Threatens Academic Freedom."

Widdowson had been scheduled this week to provide a lecture Wednesday night on the University of Louisiana campus.

Mike Mahon, president and vice chancellor of the university, wrote in a statement Monday that the U of L had sought guidance over the past few days upon learning of the planned lecture involving Widdowson.

That was a turnaround from a Thursday statement from the U of L. In that statement, Mahon wrote that Widdowson's views conflict with those held by the university, including its stated commitment to the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

However, it added that the lecture would be allowed to proceed, citing its policies on free expression.

On Monday, Mahon said that the U of L had received "considerable input" from internal and external communities.

Mahon was responding to days of protests from students and some faculty. Widdowson had been invited to speak on campus by faculty member Paul Viminitz, who works in the philosophy department at the university. Viminitz declined a request for an interview.

Two petitions had received more than 2,500 signatures demanding the speech be cancelled as of publication time.

Before being fired, Widdowson had been a tenured professor at MRU in economics, justice, and policy studies. She made headlines in 2020 after saying the Black Lives Matter movement had destroyed the university and that there had been an educational benefit to residential schools.

That prompted more than 6,000 people to call for her firing via a petition. She was dismissed from the Calgary institution in late 2021. At the time, she attributed her firing to her criticizing "woke ideas" and suggested that "identity politics" had prevented people from discussing ideas at the university.

Since then, she's made such subjects a regular part of her public appearances. That page had raised more than $39,000 as of January 30. She wrote that the school's faculty association was taking her case to arbitration this month.

Widdowson has been hailed as an example of the alleged erosion of academic freedom on university campuses. But her comments have also drawn heavy criticism, with others suggesting they amount to harmful historical falsehoods.

Nathan Crow, a full-time student at the U of L and the Indigenous student representative on the University of Lethbridge student's union council, said false narratives can be harmful.

CBC News has reached out to Alberta's minister of advanced education, Demetrios Nicolaides, for comment.

[abpoli]

A provincial review of post-secondary institutions is raising questions about whether Red Deer and Grande Prairie Regional colleges will transition into universities as planned.

Advanced Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said the decisions are under review as external consultants McKinsey and Company evaluate how post-secondary education is offered across Alberta.

"Whether or not they need to become a university I think is a question that's still ongoing," Nicolaides said in an interview with CBC last week.

The transformations would be expensive and require changes to the colleges' governance structures, he said. The schools do not need to be classified as universities to be able to grant degrees for programs that Nicolaides approves.

It's a departure from the celebratory mood in 2018 when both colleges announced the former NDP government had granted them permission to make the transition.

Continue reading

[supersaiyadaddy]

Province approves exceptional tuition hikes at University of Alberta

[vishwadha]

Advanced education minister expects Alberta post-secondary institutions to drop vaccine and mask mandates | Globalnews.ca

Advanced education minister expects Alberta post-secondary institutions to drop vaccine and mask mandates | Globalnews.ca

Alberta’s advanced education minister has advised post-secondary schools he expects them to align with the province’s COVID-19 policies and welcome students back to in-person learning without proof of vaccination and mask mandates next month. In a letter to schools Wednesday, Advanced Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said he expects Alberta universities, colleges and polytechnics to align…

[stevemaclellan]

The thousands of students who attend Alberta’s post-secondary institutions every year are used to their work being graded. But now, thanks to a new policy announced by the provincial government, the people running those universities and colleges will be getting their own report cards.

Beginning this year, up to 15 per cent of their operational funding will be tied to metrics like enrolment, graduation rates and the median incomes of their program’s graduates. That will reach 40 per cent of total funding by 2022—in addition to cuts in last year’s budget that reduced funding for operating expenses by five per cent. According to Demetrios Nicolaides, the Minister of Advanced Education, “this new model is designed to help our students succeed.”

[the-quotable-alberta-hansard]

March 20, 2024

Ms Notley: Mr. Speaker, there are close to 40,000 teachers in Alberta who work each and every day to educate our kids. Professionalism and support from the Minister of Education are critical to ensuring that they can do their job. But at a government MLA-sponsored event the keynote speaker declared that the vast majority of the government caucus agrees that Alberta teachers are showing our kids pornography, so to the Minister of Education: is the claim about his caucus correct? If so, what is he going to do about it?

Mr. Nicolaides: Mr. Speaker, while the NDP is focused on party politics, our government is focused on improvements to the classroom, improvements to our schools so that we can continue to deliver world-class education. As an example, in Budget ’24 we’re increasing spending by 4.4 per cent; that’s $400 million to help support our school divisions across the province. We’re building 19 new schools in this budget alone to make sure our students have updated and modernized spaces. We will continue to be there for teachers and students.

Ms Notley: Well, that did everything but answer the question, but the message was pretty clear.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The latest draft of Alberta's elementary school social studies curriculum is out, with revisions that integrate more Indigenous perspectives and what the government describes as a greater focus on critical thinking. The third iteration of kindergarten to Grade 6 social studies content comes after the province took the curriculum back to the drawing board in the wake of backlash over a 2021 draft, with critics saying it was age-inappropriate and culturally exclusive. The government subsequently did a new round of consultations with the public, teachers, community leaders and curriculum experts to come up with a new plan.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland @abpoli

[kimsiever]

While Minister of Advanced Education Demetrios Nicolaides mentioned that these institutions would have individual targets, he did indicate that those targets could include the following metrics:https://t.co/jygnb11pPO

— Kim Siever (@kim_siever) January 20, 2020

from Twitter https://twitter.com/kim_siever

[the-quotable-alberta-hansard]

February 28, 2023

Mr. Nicolaides: You know, one of the things that students have been asking for and have been lobbying me about over the course of the past four years has been stability and predictability when it comes to tuition policy. We currently don’t have that because of the cap, that the members opposite created, that’s allowed tuition to increase by 5 and a half per cent this current year.

[the-quotable-alberta-hansard]

February 28, 2023

Mr. Eggen: The Premier and this minister have approved hikes of anywhere between 16 to 104 per cent in tuition, more than $10,000 in additional fees, removed access to grants, underspent student aid, slashed funding to postsecondary at record levels. So it begs the question: why would the postsecondary minister make it so hard for students to get a postsecondary education?

Mr. Nicolaides: Well, Mr. Speaker, if the member is curious about why it’s so difficult, he should ask his boss in Ottawa, Jagmeet Singh, who is working with Trudeau to jack up the carbon tax. Reckless spending is driving up inflation. One of the reasons that postsecondary students are struggling is because of a cost-of-living crisis created by the Trudeau Liberal and Jagmeet Singh alliance through reckless spending.

[the-quotable-alberta-hansard]

December 6, 2022

Mr. Nicolaides: I mentioned earlier the member for the district of Alexandra, MLA Bramley-Moore, who wrote a book. I’ve just ordered it on Amazon. I’ll be happy to give the House an update when it arrives and I’ve had an opportunity to sit down and read that book from 1911 from cover to cover. Perhaps there may be some more interesting insights, but one of the things that the member said, which I found quite interesting, which I think I’ll leave the Assembly with, was a very simple comment, a very simple statement: Alberta first, last, and forever.

Popping out of the tags to offer some info. That book is called Canada and Her Colonies; Or Home Rule For Alberta. Separatists love to reference it. They tend not to reference the white supremacy spelled out very clearly in it. One might hope that the Minister of Advanced Education would be more careful about what he references, but one might hope in vain. Nicolaides is way more eager to cater to his grievance-obsessed base who eat this shit up and probably love the racist elements anyway.

You can find the book pretty easily if you want to read it for yourself (though you can probably guess most of its content. These people haven't changed their tune much in 112 years. "Ottawa is stealing all our stuff, we should be able to exploit the land however we want blah blah blah"). Also here's a Twitter thread

[the-quotable-alberta-hansard]

May 4, 2022

Mr. Nicolaides: I just wanted to rise to address the comment that postsecondary education in Alberta is unaffordable because that statement is simply not true. Tuition in Alberta is below the national average. I think all members of the Assembly can say it with me at this point. Tuition in Alberta remains very competitive.

[the-quotable-alberta-hansard]

April 20, 2022

Mr. Nicolaides: As the member says – and I agree that it’s not useful and worth while to talk about what happened between 2015 and ’19. We all want to erase that period from our minds because it was a very dark time in the province. I remember, when I was out door-knocking in that period, that when I would ask people at the doors what their number one issue was, a lot of people would just laugh and smirk at me and say: I don’t know; get rid of the NDP. That was their number one issue.