International News Desk – At Home and Around the Globe

International News Desk – At Home and Around the Globe

At Home: Government Sued over Law School Approval
In British Columbia, a group of five lawyers is suing the BC government over advanced education ministers Amrik Virk’s decision to approve the controversial Western Trinity University’s school of law, according to a story in The Globe and Mail. Western Trinity University requires all students and staff to live up to its “community covenant” that requires they abstain from “sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman.”

The lawyers contend that the minister had a duty to consider how accrediting the school might violate our Charter guarantees of equality and freedom of discrimination on sexual preference.

Around the Globe: President of Yale becomes CEO of Coursera
Richard C. Levin was formerly the president of Yale University. Last month, however, he was named the head of Coursera, an online education company that primarily deals in massive open online courses (MOOCs). Coursera is a for profit company that relies on students taking its MOOCs to sign up for a “signature track” that provides students who’ve successfully completed a course a certificate indicating so, provided they’ve paid a fee of approximately $50 in order to verify their identity.

Mr. Levin, interviewed in a New York Times article, predicts that Coursera will start being financially viable within five years, basing that on the idea that as online courses become more popular and certificates from them more well accepted, they will be able to capitalize on demand to increase fees as enrolments increase. Coursera currently partners with larger universities in order to deliver their content.