"This is not a privatization," Axworthy said. "It is a new form of accountability."
It's also not particularly news. The Globe and Mail, which made the changes its banner headline yesterday, had reported on the plan back in June. In separate stories June 1 and June 15, the Globe also reported that two of the major banks -- Montreal and Toronto-Dominion -- have chosen not to get involved in the new CSL plan. Instead, they'll offer their own student loans programs, based on a line-of-credit system with interest rates one percentage point above "prime".
Under the new CSL program, interest will be limited to a fixed rate of "prime plus up to 5 per cent" or a floating rate of prime plus 2.5 percentage points. Another change: the six-month period after graduation before students have to start paying back their loans is being increased to as much as 24 months. In Ontario, Canada Student Loans are a part of the Ontario Student Assistance Program.
"This area has been extremely high maintenance particularly in winter months because of sets of steps at each end resulting in a large area of hand shovelling, salting, etc. This area was always considered to be very unsafe due to the large paving stones always shifting,c reating tripping hazards.
"The steps at each end will be removed and replaced with a gradually sloping walkway which will greatly assist the movement of the physically challenged to the buildings. The existing ramps (which are being removed) at each end required some diligent maneuvering to navigate."
The release is about the work of Jane Webster, in the department of management sciences, who says, "Play at work is not a contradiction in terms, because distinctions between work and play are becoming less clear as more jobs involve expertise and microcomputers." She defines play as any activity that produces both immediate pleasure and involvement. "The pleasure must come from the activity itself, not from expectations of future pay or food or social status."
In a survey, she received these descriptions of "playful situations" with computers: asking what-if questions, massaging data, investigating possibilities, seeing results, producing charts, discovering more efficient ways of working, figuring out new features of programs, learning new programs, receiving positive feedback from tutorials and designing new systems.
But respondents said computer usage was less playful when they were using familiar programs for routine tasks. She says: "People may fritter away time by learning to use new programs, learning the details of operating systems, upgrading software or hardware, running spelling checkers, formatting text or playing games." But it's debatable whether frittering is a bad thing. "Many kinds of work generate enough stress that occasional relief raises overall productivity." Indeed, developers have created "playful software" that encourages play, such as sounds, colors or cartoons, in an effort to help people learn to use new programs.
Chris Redmond
Information
and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
(519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca