November 27th, 2017
Toronto, ON - This morning, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance kicks off the 2017 Student Advocacy Week. Students from across Ontario will be travelling to Queen’s Park where they will be advocating for investment in Open Educational Resources, improving the Tuition and Funding frameworks, and supporting students and their mental health.
Student leaders will be representing 150,000 of their peers from all 8 OUSA member campuses this week in Toronto. They will be meeting with MPPs and stakeholders to discuss these three priorities, and detailed recommendations to accomplish.
"Advocacy week is one of the pillars of OUSA as an organization,” said Andrew Clubine, Vice President Education at the University of Waterloo and OUSA President. “We are so excited to be meeting with politicians, decision makers, and stakeholders, as we work to develop a more affordable, accessible, accountable, and high quality post-secondary sector."
These three priorities were established by students because they are at the core of an affordable, accessible and quality post-secondary education. To invest in Open Educational Resources, OUSA recommends that the government provide financing and supporting infrastructure required for faculty members to develop, adopt, and review OERs and invest in the development of OERs that apply to the largest entry-level classes in the province. To build on the commitment to affordable education, OUSA believes the government should increase the base operating grant provided to institutions to the weighted national average, followed by annual increases tied to inflation, and continue to regulate tuition by indexing the maximum annual increase to Ontario’s Consumer Price Index (CPI).
On November 2nd, OUSA released a report titled “In It Together” that addresses an action plan to improve student mental health in Ontario with the Council of Ontario Universities, the College Student Alliance and Colleges Ontario. This week, students will again call for the 26 recommendations in the report to be adopted.
“To say I’m excited for the week ahead is a bit of an undersell. As student leaders, you’re driven by opportunities to represent the voices of your constituency. As members of OUSA, we get to take this one step further. This week, I’m incredibly humbled and motivated by the fact that we get to represent the voices of over 150,000 undergraduate students across Ontario. OUSA’s Advocacy Week is our main event,” said Nadia Bathish, Vice President External Affairs at Brock University and OUSA Steering Committee Member.
To follow along with Student Advocacy Week, use #OUSAdvocacy on Twitter, and watch our video here.
OUSA represents the interests of 150,000 professional and undergraduate, full-time and part-time university students at eight student associations a cross Ontario. Our vision is for an accessible, affordable, accountable, and high quality post-secondary education in Ontario. To achieve this vision we’ve come together to develop solutions to challenges facing higher education, build broad consensus for our policy options, and lobby government to implement them.
Deborah Lam
Operations & Communications Director
Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance
416-341-9948
[email protected]