Advocacy Week 2016 was an enormous success! We had 56 student leaders from across the country meet with 163 federal decision-makers to discuss issues in Canadian post-secondary. The recommendations brought to the Hill include:
- Establishing a six-month interest-free period on the federal portion of student loans following graduation to better reflect the challenges of the current job market;
- Extending the Canada Student Grants Program (CSGP) to master's and doctoral students;
- Supporting students with mental health disabilities by covering the cost of a formal psychological assessment;
- Exploring how Open-Educational Resources (OERs) can be used to increase accessibility of education in Canada through a pilot project;
- Improving educational attainment levels of Indigenous Canadians by increasing funding to the Post-Secondary Student Support Program (PSSSP);
- Working towards reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians by supporting reconciliation programming in post-secondary institutions across the country;
- Increasing the number of paid employment opportunities for students, such as internships, apprenticeships, and co-ops;
- Promoting workforce skills development by establishing a training incentive for the private sector; and
- Funding the indirect costs of research to better encourage innovation.