The Ontario Public School Boards Association (OPSBA), which bargains with teachers, says staffing and workload provisions have not kept pace with changes in the classroom.

Teachers will also not attend staff, divisional or ministry of education meetings. They will not conduct any reading, writing or math assessments — unless the teacher deems them necessary to report on student progress.

The blacklegged tick population is creeping northward into Canada, and with it climbs the risk of contracting Lyme disease.

York University researchers are warning that climate change is causing the country to become increasingly habitable to the blood-sucking bugs, which migrate by clinging to travelling birds and deer.

Jianhong Wu, the director of the York Institute for Health Research, says the tick population will grow exponentially in the coming years in many parts of Ontario.

More than three tonnes of elephant ivory have been found at a Thai port stashed in a container shipped from Kenya, customs said on Monday, the second huge haul of tusks from Africa in less than a week.

The discovery, which would be worth millions of dollars on the black market, was destined for Laos where the illegal ivory trade flourishes.

Some 511 pieces of ivory was found on 25 April in a container “marked as tea leaves transported from Mombasa, Kenya, and on to Laos”, Thai customs said in a statement.

Scores of whole tusks – some nearly two metres long – were among the pieces seized.

The high growth rate achieved by the Lao People's Democratic Republic since the introduction of economic reforms in the mid-1980s has resulted in a steady decline in poverty. The country has made impressive progress in economic growth, with the proportion of poor people falling from 39 per cent of the population in the mid-1990s to 27.6 per cent in 2010.