Education
Red Deer Graduate earns $100,000 scholarship
News release from Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools
École Secondaire Notre Dame High School student Olivia McAuley awarded prestigious Schulich Leader Scholarship
École Secondaire Notre Dame High School is proud to announce that Olivia McAuley has been selected as a 2024 Schulich Leader at the University of Calgary. This prestigious scholarship comes with $100,000 in funding and is awarded to only a handful of exceptional students across Canada for their excellence in Science, Technology, or Mathematics.
Olivia McAuley’s achievement marks a significant milestone for both her and our school community. She is one of the 50 recipients of a Science, Technology, and Math Scholarship from across the country, recognized for her academic excellence and entrepreneurial leadership. She will be studying for a Bachelor of Science.
“We are proud to celebrate the continued success of Schulich Leader Scholarships, the premiere STEM scholarship program in Canada. This group of outstanding students will represent the best and brightest Canada has to offer and will make great contributions to society, both on a national and global scale. With their university expenses covered, they can focus their time on their studies, research projects, extracurriculars, and entrepreneurial ventures. They are the
next generation of entrepreneurial-minded, technology innovators,” said program founder Mr. Schulich.
Olivia expressed her gratitude and excitement, stating, “Receiving the Schulich Leader Scholarship is a life-changing opportunity for me. It not only eases the financial burden of university but also provides me with the freedom to fully immerse myself in my studies and pursue my passion for innovation in science, technology and math.”
Ike Hanna, Principal of École Secondaire Notre Dame High School, also shared his pride in Olivia’s accomplishment: “We are incredibly proud of Olivia’s hard work, dedication, and achievements. Her selection as a Schulich Leader is a testament to her exceptional talent and potential. We look forward to seeing all the great things she will accomplish in the future.”
About Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools
Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools serves over 10,650 students in 21 schools in Red Deer, Blackfalds, Sylvan Lake, Rocky Mountain House, Innisfail, and Olds. It also supports the learning of over 850 students in a Home Education Program. The Division is committed to serving children and parents with a complete offering of learning opportunities delivered within the context of Catholic teachings and within the means of the Division.
About Schulich Leader Scholarships Canada
Recognizing the increasing importance and impact that STEM disciplines will have on the prosperity of future generations, businessman and philanthropist Seymour Schulich established this $100+ million scholarship fund in 2012 to encourage our best and brightest students to become Schulich Leader Scholars: the next generation of entrepreneurial-minded, technology innovators.
Through The Schulich Foundation, these prestigious entrance scholarships are awarded to 100 high school graduates enrolling in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) undergraduate program at 20 partner universities in Canada. Every high school in Canada can submit one Schulich Leader Nominee per academic year based on academic excellence in STEM, entrepreneurial leadership, and financial need.
About The Schulich Foundation
The Schulich Foundation is one of Canada’s largest foundations, having donated in excess of $350 million. Seymour Schulich established and funded The Schulich Foundation. He holds Canada’s highest civilian award, the Order of Canada, and is among Canada’s greatest philanthropists. Having benefited greatly from a scholarship that enabled him to do his MBA, Mr. Schulich has built a well-earned reputation as a champion for education and access to education in Canada and around the world. The Schulich Foundation has endowed university faculties of business, engineering, medicine, law, education, music, chemistry, nursing, and dentistry; libraries, dormitories, courtyards, medical health centers, lecture and music halls. Over 6,000 scholarships are awarded annually to students in Schulich Schools.
The Foundation’s largest initiative is the $200 million Schulich Leaders Scholarships program, spanning 25 universities across Canada and Israel, in support of students pursuing STEM education.
For more information, visit: schulichleaders.com.
From the Fraser Institute
Odds are, you can’t tell whether this sentence was written by AI. Schools across Canada face the same problem. And happily, some are finding simple solutions.
Manitoba’s Division Scolaire Franco-Manitobaine recently issued new guidelines for teachers, to only assign optional homework and reading in grades Kindergarten to six, and limit homework in grades seven to 12. The reason? The proliferation of generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots such as ChatGPT make it very difficult for teachers, juggling a heavy workload, to discern genuine student work from AI-generated text. In fact, according to Division superintendent Alain Laberge, “Most of the [after-school assignment] submissions, we find, are coming from AI, to be quite honest.”
This problem isn’t limited to Manitoba, of course.
Two provincial doors down, in Alberta, new data analysis revealed that high school report card grades are rising while scores on provincewide assessments are not—particularly since 2022, the year ChatGPT was released. Report cards account for take-home work, while standardized tests are written in person, in the presence of teaching staff.
Specifically, from 2016 to 2019, the average standardized test score in Alberta across a range of subjects was 64 while the report card grade was 73.3—or 9.3 percentage points higher). From 2022 and 2024, the gap increased to 12.5 percentage points. (Data for 2020 and 2021 are unavailable due to COVID school closures.)
In lieu of take-home work, the Division Scolaire Franco-Manitobaine recommends nightly reading for students, which is a great idea. Having students read nightly doesn’t cost schools a dime but it’s strongly associated with improving academic outcomes.
According to a Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) analysis of 174,000 student scores across 32 countries, the connection between daily reading and literacy was “moderately strong and meaningful,” and reading engagement affects reading achievement more than the socioeconomic status, gender or family structure of students.
All of this points to an undeniable shift in education—that is, teachers are losing a once-valuable tool (homework) and shifting more work back into the classroom. And while new technologies will continue to change the education landscape in heretofore unknown ways, one time-tested winning strategy is to go back to basics.
And some of “the basics” have slipped rapidly away. Some college students in elite universities arrive on campus never having read an entire book. Many university professors bemoan the newfound inability of students to write essays or deconstruct basic story components. Canada’s average PISA scores—a test of 15-year-olds in math, reading and science—have plummeted. In math, student test scores have dropped 35 points—the PISA equivalent of nearly two years of lost learning—in the last two decades. In reading, students have fallen about one year behind while science scores dropped moderately.
The decline in Canadian student achievement predates the widespread access of generative AI, but AI complicates the problem. Again, the solution needn’t be costly or complicated. There’s a reason why many tech CEOs famously send their children to screen-free schools. If technology is too tempting, in or outside of class, students should write with a pencil and paper. If ChatGPT is too hard to detect (and we know it is, because even AI often can’t accurately detect AI), in-class essays and assignments make sense.
And crucially, standardized tests provide the most reliable equitable measure of student progress, and if properly monitored, they’re AI-proof. Yet standardized testing is on the wane in Canada, thanks to long-standing attacks from teacher unions and other opponents, and despite broad support from parents. Now more than ever, parents and educators require reliable data to access the ability of students. Standardized testing varies widely among the provinces, but parents in every province should demand a strong standardized testing regime.
AI may be here to stay and it may play a large role in the future of education. But if schools deprive students of the ability to read books, structure clear sentences, correspond organically with other humans and complete their own work, they will do students no favours. The best way to ensure kids are “future ready”—to borrow a phrase oft-used to justify seesawing educational tech trends—is to school them in the basics.
Paige MacPherson
Senior Fellow, Education Policy, Fraser Institute
IMPACT-se just released their Review of the 2025-2026 Palestinian Authority School Curriculum (Grades 1-12). They reviewed 290 text books and 71 teacher guides (both printed and digital) currently in use by schools charged with educating Palestinian children. The results were unambiguous:
“The review finds that the 2025–2026 Palestinian Authority curriculum continues to systematically violate UNESCO principles and educational standards. Published in September 2025, the curriculum incites antisemitism and violence, promotes jihad and martyrdom, glorifies terrorism, rejects peacemaking and the two-state solution, and erases Israel from maps. It has not been substantively modified since the 2020–2021 school year, maintaining the same ideological framework first established in the 2016 reform cycle.”
In other words, the glorification of violence and deep racial hatred is, by design, woven into the fabric of every topic and virtually every lesson Palestinian children are taught.
The offensive examples were hardly rare exceptions throughout those 361 books. There were, for example:
- 50 examples (taking up a full 70 pages in the report) depicting Israelis or Jews as demonic or motiveless aggressors
- 47 examples of erasure of Israel from maps and language (declaring Palestine “from river to sea”)
- 56 examples of the encouragement of martyrdom and violent jihad
- 12 examples of the overt politicization of science and math
In addition, since 2016, 29 references to peace agreements, Israel, and Jews were removed from PA curriculum texts.
Overall, around 60 percent of the report’s examples come from material aimed at grades 9-11. Nevertheless, 17 examples of indoctrination (around 4 percent of the total) came from grades 1-4.
But what does all that have to do with Canada? Well, Canada has been a steady and reliable funder for UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), and the World Bank’s provision of educational services to Palestinians.
So what? Don’t all Western nations provide the same support? Not exactly.
- A May 2025 resolution adopted by the European Parliament demanded that EU financial assistance be made conditional on removal of hate material, and urged full compliance with standards of peace and tolerance for education.
- The U.K. has, in past years, cut or reduced its funding to UNRWA over concerns about incitement in educational textbooks.
- The U.S. hasn’t provided any support for UNRWA since the Biden administration paused funding in January, 2024.
- It seems that both Sweden and the Netherlands have either cut or are phasing out their UNRWA funding.
But in May 2024, Canada committed to $65 million in new funding – which follows a brief and meaningless “pause” in UNRWA funding (where no scheduled payments were actually interrupted). That brings the funding total since 2016 to $259 million. And there’s no public record of any of that money being conditional on changes to educational textbooks.
The Global Affairs Canada officials who make these spending decisions are the ones responsible for applying official government policy. And the message driving that policy is pretty clear (pro forma “antisemitism is not who we are” press releases notwithstanding). The Government of Canada is absolutely down with pouring millions into the promotion of race-driven violence.
Is Global Affairs Canada Wasting Your Tax Dollars Abroad?
It seems like forever since I last wrote about program spending at Global Affairs Canada (GAC). I’m not aware of any big-picture changes to department policy in the meantime, but their Project Browser tool is still there – and it’s still a welcome resource for transparency.
How Does UNRWA Spend the Funding it Receives From the Canadian Government?
The government of Canada – through Global Affairs Canada – has long been among the major financial supporters of The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The 75 year-old United Nations agency has a yearly budget that’s grown to more than 900 million US dollars, and has long been accused of antisemitism,…
Paying for Bad Government Choices
Who picks up the tab when budgetary bets go horribly wrong? Taxpayers, of course. Duh.
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