Jessica Wong
Jessica Wong is a senior digital writer at CBC News who covers Canadian education, with particular attention to how policy, technology and culture intersect in the classroom and in students’ lives. Her reporting tracks the pressures on schools and postsecondary institutions, from achievement gaps and attendance rules to the influence of artificial intelligence and social media. She brings experience from earlier work on national and international arts and entertainment to stories about how young people learn, consume media and navigate new digital environments.
Education systems and student outcomes
Wong consistently reports on how Canadian students are performing and what test results reveal about the health of the education system. She covers international assessments such as OECD’s PISA exams, examining how Canadian teens score overall while drawing out sharp declines among specific groups of students.
Her work on provincial policy includes detailed coverage of Ontario’s plan to tie high school attendance and class participation to a fixed share of students’ grades, explaining how the proposed weighting differs across grade levels. She follows how these policy changes are framed by governments and educators, and what they could mean for students’ day-to-day experience in school.
Across these pieces, she links achievement, attendance and assessment to broader debates about equity and the resources schools need to support diverse learners.
Skills training, apprenticeships and the trades
Wong devotes significant attention to pathways that fall outside the traditional university track, particularly skilled trades and vocational education. She reports on national skills competitions and profiles young people who see long-term opportunity in trades but describe persistent stigma around choosing these careers.
Her coverage of apprenticeship data highlights that registrations have increased while the number of apprentices who successfully complete certification has not kept pace, pointing to a gap between entry into training and progression to qualified status. In these stories, she explores how educators, governments and industry groups are trying to reshape public perceptions of trades, and what supports apprentices say they need to finish their programs.
Technology, AI and youth online safety
Much of Wong’s recent work examines how digital technology and artificial intelligence are changing education and childhood. She reports on classroom “techlash,” documenting parents who are pushing back against extensive screen time at school and questioning the educational value of some digital tools.
In higher education, she covers concerns about AI-enabled cheating, including a case where a U.S. professor suspected most of his students had used generative AI on exams and the growing worry among Canadian institutions about similar misconduct.
Her reporting extends beyond the classroom to children’s media consumption, such as stories on AI-generated “slop” videos aimed at babies and why child development experts describe that content as garbage. Wong also tracks research on social media harms, including a UNESCO report finding that girls face worse outcomes than boys when exposed to certain online environments.
She follows legislative efforts around youth online safety, detailing proposals for age-restricted social media in Australia and comparing them to emerging Canadian approaches. Her coverage of Canada’s attempt to limit kids’ social media exposure explains how a proposed online safety bill would impose new duties on platforms, establish a Digital Safety Commission and require age-verification or age-estimation measures for users under 16. She then reports on how teens themselves respond to promised restrictions, and situates Canada’s actions within a broader international trend of countries pursuing youth social media bans or tight limits.
Books, media culture and the classroom
Wong’s background in arts and entertainment coverage emerges in her education reporting on books, media and cultural content in schools. She has written about the rise in calls to ban books in Canada and the parallel increase in campaigns defending freedom to read in educational settings. In these pieces, she focuses on how challenges to school and library collections affect teachers, students and the wider classroom climate, treating debates over reading materials as part of the larger conversation about what children and teens are exposed to at school. Her broader body of work shows an interest in how cultural products - from literature to online video - shape learning, identity and the conflicts that surface in educational spaces.
4 more education journalists.
Abby Russchen
Abby Russchen ties education, community institutions and individual stories together, showing how policies and decisions register in people’s lives. She reports for CBC on education and community life, working across text, video and photography for different CBC platforms. Her education coverage centres student achievement, provincial and national test results, classroom technology and the forces shaping learning conditions, connecting policy language and expert analysis to observable changes in performance. She treats AI, screens and digital tools as part of the education beat, focusing on their impact on student well-being. She also reports on community institutions and local services, from bank closures and changing city status to small-business growth. Her human-interest features follow people, public memory and recognition, and her long-form background supports detailed, fact-grounded narratives across formats.
Alexa Phillips
Alexa Phillips reports on education as a financial system, tracing who pays, who benefits and who bears the risk when policy changes reshape schools and universities. She covers education policy, funding and regulation for The i Paper, with a consistent focus on money, power and their impact on students and staff. Her reporting follows fees, budgets and reform into classrooms and lecture halls, using concrete figures to show how tax changes, funding mechanisms and loan reforms translate into course cuts, job losses and access. Phillips brings wider experience on public services and regulation, including work on gambling oversight and healthcare access, so education sits in a larger accountability story. She writes straightforward, reported news pieces that combine policy detail, financial data and case studies, built from official records and regular call‑outs to readers affected by the systems she covers.
Alexandra Holyk
Alexandra Holyk is a multi-skilled journalist at CTV News who reports on education and youth issues through the daily lives of students, families, and local communities. She covers school and campus decisions, student safety, youth behaviour, and neighbourhood incidents, with a focus on how they affect the people directly involved. Her work includes stories on graduation choices, concerns about Black students in a school board, federal research funding at the University of Waterloo, and students who helped after a cyclist collision. She also covers vandalism and other local disruptions around schools and neighbourhoods. Holyk pitches, researches, shoots, writes, edits, and presents stories for broadcast and digital platforms. Her previous work includes video journalism for provincial coverage, along with reporting for campus and regional outlets and major Canadian newspapers and business media.
Annabelle Olivier
Annabelle Olivier ties system-level themes in Quebec’s school system to the immediate realities of parents and students, treating education as a lived experience rather than an abstract policy field. She is a digital journalist with CBC News, covering education and related public policy. Her work spans data breaches and digital privacy in schools, institutional conflicts and labour disputes that disrupt study plans, education on the campaign trail, and school infrastructure and land use. She reports on incidents like mass emails exposing sensitive parent data, suspended classes that leave students feeling like bargaining chips, and proposals to turn racetracks into schools. Her background in digital production at another major Canadian broadcaster shapes an online-first reporting style, grounded in specific incidents, clear descriptions, and detailed, verifiable facts drawn from documents, statements and interviews.