On Oct. 18, NSCAD’s president Peggy Shannon emailed all students and faculty a statement against hate: “In the midst of a horrific escalation of violence in the Middle East that has resulted in many civilian deaths, I want to unequivocally condemn all forms of hate and discrimination.” The email went on to describe NSCAD as […]
Lauren Phillips, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Lauren Phillips is The Coast’s Education Reporter, a position created in September 2023 with support from the Local Journalism Initiative. Lauren studied journalism at the University of King’s College, and has written on education and sports at Dal News and Saint Mary's Athletics for over two years. She won gold in the Canadian online publishing awards in the academic Best Multicultural Story category for her work on "Kwe’ Eskasoni," in May 2022, and assisted the journalism academic partners of Looking Out For Each Other (LOFEO), a project that started with the media guidelines on how to report responsibly on missing Indigenous people. Lauren assisted in researching recommendations for family and friends of missing Indigenous people to help them understand how media works and how to communicate effectively with reporters.
Posted inNews + Opinion
In Halifax, 1 in 3 young children live in ‘child care deserts.’ In Nova Scotia, it’s nearly 1 in 2. How is the province trying to solve that?
Corrections January 31: After this story was published, the province got in touch about two things. First, we were wrong to say the “annual report from 2023 is overdue” because Nova Scotia’s funding agreement with the federal government doesn’t require a publicly available annual report. The province assures us that the required Action Plan was […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
School’s out for the year! Should Halifax get an “L” in school infrastructure in 2023?
Don’t shoot the messenger, but school’s back in session Tuesday. Before we say goodbye to 2023, let’s gaze back longingly into the halls of learning and growing that got us through another year, bidding farewell to schools that closed and welcoming in ones that opened. So, how did 2023 balance out? According to the Department […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Halifax team brings university learning to people behind bars
What is anti-oppressive education? “It begins with the idea that education is a right for all,” says El Jones, an assistant professor at Mount St. Vincent University–MSVU–a spoken word poet, a writer, a journalist, and a community activist whose work focuses on feminism, prison abolition, anti-racism and decolonization. “Everybody has the capacity for education, and […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Ask the Hole your questions and the Hole shall provide
Don’t worry. Ask Hole has you covered, once again. The Coast sat down with our historic and illustrious advice-giver who ran a monthly column in The Coast, in 2017. As a holiday treat, join Ask Hole for another dip in the anonymous Q and A pond as Hole answers a couple of readers’ questions during […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Stop the build on new French-language school on the peninsula, says suspended school board member
Parents of Francophone children on the Halifax peninsula face a bleak reality: switch their kids out of French schools before Grade 10 in order to assimilate them into English schools, or send them on a bus to the nearest French high school–l’École secondaire Mosaïque in Burnside. Frustration has reached a boiling point over years drawn […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Dalhousie delegation of ocean researchers has big presence at COP28
What insights into climate change does the ocean hold? What solutions can it offer for life on a warming planet? None if we don’t have the means to listen. The Dalhousie University-based Ocean Frontier Institute—OFI—is opening up global conversations on ocean observation during the 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Volta startup hub starts up in a new space beside City Hall
Atlantic Canada’s tech-startup hub, Volta Labs–or simply Volta–has a history of success, expansion and reimagination that tangentially exposes Halifax’s real estate development explosion over the past decade that has transformed most of the city–especially the downtown core. Volta’s CEO Matt Cooper alludes to these rapid changes that favour some development over others when he says: […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Province to fund much-needed NSCC student housing, but questions remain
Students at four Nova Scotia Community College—NSCC—campuses across the province will soon have help finding housing. On Tuesday, Nov. 21, Nova Scotia’s minister of advanced education, Brian Wong, announced an unspecified funding package to build roughly 270 new beds for NSCC students in Springhill, Kentville, Bridgewater and the Institute of Technology in Halifax. The Halifax […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Suspended school board member in Halifax still advocating for French-language education on the peninsula
UPDATE Nov. 22: An English translation of the interview has been added to this story—the text is below, under the original French audio version. It may surprise you to learn that there is no French-language high school on the Halifax peninsula. Not one. Parents, care-givers and students who go to primary school in French inevitably […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Fighting for the right to education
A small but loud group of students and progressive organizers met in the cold square of Grand Parade on the morning of Wednesday Nov. 8, to protest astronomical tuition fee increases in their lifetimes. Aideen Reynolds, chairperson of the Canadian Federation for Students Nova Scotia—CFS-NS—emceed the first hour of speeches at the cenotaph in front of […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Nova Scotia students join national day of action calling for free and universal access to university education
The Nova Scotia chapter of the Canadian Federation of Students—CFS-NS—is joining in the Canada-wide day of action for free and universal access to university education on Wednesday, Nov. 8. At 11am, students and supporters will convene at Grand Parade in Halifax as a part of the “Fight the Fees” campaign organized by the national student […]
