Scholarships Grants

Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada (AHN) – All of Saskatchewan’s teachers struck on Thursday to demand a contract. The educators have been working without a contract since August 31.

The job walk off of members of the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation made the province’s history because it is the first time they initiated an industrial action.

In lieu of teaching, the teachers held study sessions and a rally in front of Saskatchewan’s legislature in Regina.

Saskatchewan Education Minister Donna Harpauer said she was disappointed with the union’s move, but admitted it is their right to strike as part of the bargaining process. The minister said she would rather prefer to see the students learning inside the classrooms, than the teachers holding pickets.

The one-day strike, announced Tuesday, affected the Regina Public, Regina Catholic, Prairie Valley and Prairie South school divisions. Classes across the province are expected to resume Friday.

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Toronto, Canada (AHN) – A Chinese student of a Toronto, Canada university was murdered in her dorm room while she was chatting with her boyfriend in Beijing, China.

The boyfriend, who was not identified by reports, saw on the webcam Qian Liu, 23, attacked by a male visitor believed to be her spurned lover. The attacker then switched off the laptop, which is now missing.

The boyfriend tried to alert Liu’s friends from the York University Village through social networking sites during the attack in the early morning of Friday. But 10 hours passed before one concerned person checked the student in her dorm. When the landlord discovered Liu lying on the floor dead, the police was notified.

Toronto police found Liu half-naked from the waist down. An autopsy and toxicology exam is being conducted to establish the cause of her death.

he laptop used by the victim to chat with her boyfriend in Beijing and her personal mobile phone were missing.

The police are now tracking down the suspected killer described by Liu’s dorm mates as in his 20s, 6 feet tall and weighing 200 pounds.

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – The Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) of Canada is pushing for a national child care program to ensure the country’s future economic prosperity.

The YWCA pointed out more women should be freed from child care duties as the Canadian workforce increasing relies on female workers who are educated and skilled.

The proposal is an alternative to men beginning to be more active in raising children, according to the YWCA report released Monday prior to the global celebration of International Women’s Day.

While many Canadian couples want to have both husband and wife working, the presence of young children forces women to either stay at home or seek only part-time employment. One alternative is to bring the children to child care facilities, which charge up to $60 a day and often have long waiting lists.

Despite the establishment of a national daycare program being one of the vital recommendations of the 1970 Royal Commission on the Status of Women, regulated child care in Canada is available for only 20 percent of children under 5 years old.

However, even with that limitation, employment of women with babies and toddlers grew to 64.4 percent in 2009 from 27.6 percent in 1976. For women with children with the ages 6 to 15, employment reached 79 percent.

Last year, Ontario introduced the full-day kindergarten with schools offering the service expected to reach 1,700 in 2012. YWCA Chief Executive Officer Paulette Senior welcomed the launch of the full-day kindergarten because it will permit the women to participate fully in the economic, social, cultural and political life of their communities.

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Student loans in the United Kingdom is given to pay the tuition fees and the other essential educational everyday expenditure like hall fare, books, notes, etc. This is only appropriate for the private institutions. Government fund for education is not a fraction of Student financial aid. It means to award scholarship for each and every student. Some countries like Germany, gives a little amount of financial help for every student. A synonym of financial aid is scholarship. There are many types of scholarships and loans in the schools and colleges.

All the government of the states of U.S offers merit based scholarships, grants; work with job and educational loans. There is also some research based scholarship for the student. In this year, Norwegian government offers more than eight hundred scholarships for the students. Research based scholarship means, a student can get financial or facility help by working in the research works of the country. In this year, more than 8000 undergraduate or post graduate stunts are going to get scholarship according to their merit. There is some division of scholarship. The government has done a tremendous job here. Pell scholarship, SEOG scholarship, SMART scholarship, Academic performance scholarship, FWS scholarship, and FSL scholarship is almost same in the developed countries. All of these scholarships except FSL scholarship are for undergraduate students. FSL scholarship is for post graduate students. There are also some scholarships like Bill-Melinda scholarship, IBM scholarship, Munich scholarship for the school or college students. They are- Pell scholarship, SEOG scholarship, SMART scholarship, Academic performance scholarship, FWS scholarship, and FSL scholarship. Some educational loans also offered to the students. They are, Federal plus loan, FS loan, Federal parkas loan etc. In 10/7/2010, congress has eliminated PL loan, which act can hamper a life of a student. Without scholarship, this is kind of impossible to study in the developed countries like United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Norway, New Zeeland, Australia and Canada. Students from third world countries only come to these countries for study with scholarship. Without scholarship, this is impossible to bear the cost of study.

In many European countries, the student loan is very essential for the students, because the cost of education is very expensive there. The privet universities sometimes funded with endowment. The government institutions are normally funded fully or partially by the local state authority. Sometimes, the university governing body contributes a large amount of money for the students. In United Kingdom and in the United States, most of the Universities or other educational institutions are private. So the full free tuition fee culture is very low in those private universities. For this reason, the education is very expensive there. United Kingdom is a well educated country. The percentage of education is almost hundred percent there. As the education is very expensive there, student loans are very important.

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – Research by Statistics Canada found that university-educated immigrants in the U.S. earn more than their counterparts in Canada.

New and university degree holder Canadian immigrants earned 50 percent less than native-born Canadians, while the pay gap between U.S. born worker and the educated migrant was only 30 percent.

The study examined migrants who arrived between 1980 to 2005. Prior to the research period covered, the pay gap of the university-educated migrants in both North American countries against native-born workers was more or less the same.

StatsCan, however, could not pinpoint the reason behind the growing gap. Among the theories is that an oversupply of university degree holders among Canadian migrants. In 1980, only 20 percent of new arrivals have degrees, while by 2005, the figure had risen to 55 percent.

Another reason posited is that the new Canadian migrants were mostly Asians, instead of Europeans, so 80 percent of them did not speak English or French at home, as opposed to 50 percent only in the 1970s.

One more worrying finding is that after more than a decade of working in Canada, the migrants’ wage gap with native-born workers persisted and even worsened to 30 percent in the 1990s from 10 percent in the 1960s. In comparison, the wage gap in the U.S. remained at 12 percent.

But despite the wage advantage among U.S. immigrants, majority of them are still considered lower-paid workers who like the average American struggle to pay their bills and provide for even basic necessities.

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Today, the importance of a college education cannot be disputed. Any professional field requires you to have some sort of post-secondary education, whether it’s in the form of a degree, a diploma, a certificate or some other sort of accreditation. In fact, a survey was conducted around the world about the significance of a college degree in the corporate field. You may be surprised to know that a college degree affects your salary by a 60 per cent increment. Even with these statistics, situations exist that may hinder you from obtaining a college education. Luckily, there are solutions to many of these problems. These solutions are facilitated by the government and educational bodies, which ensure that those who a want to receive an essential college education, have the opportunity to.

One situation that may make you reconsider college is finances. Times are tough and having enough money to pay for college is difficult. However, many institutions, such as Centennial College in Toronto, Ontario offer financial aid, as well as grants and scholarships. This will ease the financial burden. There are also professionals at the school who can walk you through the steps of the application, making applying for student financial aid easy. Another reason you may think you are not able to attend school is that you have not completed your secondary education. Centennial College offers courses to help you receive these academic credits so that you can enter the program of your choice quickly. These programs include: English for Academic Purposes, General Arts and Science and others. Also, internationally educated professionals can also enter the Canadian industry with courses for specifically designed to help them bridge the gap between their home country and Canada.

Centennial College is an excellent choice as it was the first community college in Ontario with a long history of training professionals through full-time, part-time, degree, co-op, fast track, international and various other study programs. The school offers programs in the areas of: Business, Communications, Media and Design; Community and Health; Engineering Technology and Applied Science; Hospitality Tourism and Culture as well as Transportation. No matter what School of study you are most interested in, you will receive a theoretical and practical education that is applied by qualified instructors who have field experience.

Common admission requirements for diploma or certificate programs at Centennial College include at minimum an Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) or equivalent. You may also be considered if you are at least 19 years of age. Centennial’s academic requirements state that you must have completed the compulsory English 12C or U credit or a skills assessment. However, these are just two of the common requirements. Please note that requirements do vary from program to program and it is best to visit the Centennial College program database to learn more.

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – Many Canadian workers would begin 2011 paying higher personal income and payroll taxes, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation warned Tuesday.

For personal income taxes, the federation said all the 16 income and family groups in each Canadian province would pay 2 percent higher taxes.

For business payroll taxes, because of hikes in payroll tax thresholds, workers earning more than $44,200 a year would shell out $76 more, while their employers would have to pay $110 more.

The federation blamed the increase to the federal government’s hike in the Canadian Pension Plan premiums and the creation of new, non-insurance based programs funded by Employment Insurance premiums, which caused the program to create a deficit to be covered by higher rates.

The federation pointed out that income tax and payroll tax increases in previous years evened out because some groups enjoyed cuts, while others had to pay more. In 2011, all income levels, family scenarios and geographical location would be affected negatively.

Worst hit will be residents of Ontario, British Columbia and Nova Scotia because inflation rates in these provinces are higher than national average. As a consequence, Ontario residents would be hit with a 4.3 percent increase, BC residents 2.9 percent and Nova Scotians 2.8 percent.

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Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – The Supreme Court of Canada allowed Thursday the filing of a class-action lawsuit by veterans over their military pension. The action reverses an earlier decision by the Federal Court of Appeal, which was initially certified by the Federal Court.

The case stems from a suit filed by military mechanic Dennis Manuge on behalf of 6,500 injured veterans. Manuge was hurt in 2002 while assigned at the Canadian Forces Base Petawawa. When he left the military, Ottawa took back $10,000 of Manuge’s disability pension, which prompted the ex-mechanic to file the suit.

Manuge got Federal Court okay for a class action, but Ottawa appealed and secured a stay. The Court of Appeal turned down Manuge’s class-action lawsuit, ruling he should have applied for a judicial review of his case.

The basis of the Supreme Court action was a $250 million lawsuit filed by TeleZone Inc. against Industry Canada. The firm accused Ottawa of denying it a license for wireless communication services. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice allowed TeleZone’s legal action, ruling it was not necessary for the telecom firm to seek a judicial review of Industry Canada’s action.

More than 50 percent of veterans in Manuge’s class-action lawsuit have mental health problems. Manuge, who once was deployed in Bosnia, suffered depression after he injured his back at the military base in Ontario.

When Manuge was released in 2003 after nine years of service, he became eligible for long-term disability insurance benefits of 75 percent of his pay. However, Ottawa removed almost $400 – included for pain and suffering – from the amount that Manuge received monthly.

Ottawa explained the clawback for recipients of disability payments was to keep premiums as low as possible, and that such deductions were common among public and private plans during that time. Manuge’s class-action lawsuit would not apply to veterans who were injured after 2007 because by that year Veterans Affairs started to give lump-sum pain and suffering payments that were not deducted from long-term disability.

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Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada (AHN) – Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on Monday gave Canadian provinces until 2015 to wipe out their budget deficits. He encouraged the provinces to address their financial problems to avoid facing a debt crisis similar to what some European Union nations are grappling with.

Most Canadian provinces have already made plans to achieve balanced books within the next five years. Ottawa, however, has an eight-year timetable to remove its projected $18.7 billion deficit. Although Ontario accounts for 40 percent of Canada’s economy, Flaherty said the largest province’s fiscal situation does not place Canada’s economy at risk.

To help provinces cope with decreasing revenues and increasing expenses, Ottawa hiked transfers for 2011-12 to $56 billion, which is $2.2 billion higher than the current year’s transfers. The federal transfers are allocated for delivery of front-line services such as health care and social programs.

Flaherty added that he ordered a one-year protection of federal transfers to provinces in which there would be no reductions in major transfers for next year. The move costs Ottawa $1.1 billion.

In the same meeting of finance ministers, the group agreed to Flaherty’s proposal to establish a new private-sector retirement savings fund that will provide Canadians more retirement savings options. The fund will be open to small Canadian firms, employees whose companies do not want to participate and self-employed workers.

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Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – The Supreme Court of Canada will tackle a pay equity dispute between Canada Post and the Public Service Alliance of Canada that has been ongoing for almost three decades.

The union filed a case in August 1983 with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal against Canada Post charging that female workers were discriminated against because they were paid less than male employees doing similar tasks. The case involved 2,300 clerical workers belonging to PSAC whose wages were compared to 2,300 clerical employees from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. The CUPW had 14.000 female employees at that time.

Canada Post Vice President for Human Resources Lynn Palmer said in a 2005 statement, “That any wage gap that may have existed in the past was due to the collective bargaining power of two different unions operating in distinct work areas and that it had nothing to do with gender discrimination.”

In 2005, the tribunal ruled in favor of PSAC. However, in 2008 a Federal Court overruled the tribunal’s decision. The Federal Court of Appeal upheld in February the Federal Court’s decision, prompting the PSAC to elevate the matter to the Supreme Court.

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