Since the mid-1990s, Ontario has had the worst student-to-faculty ratio in Canada. While the number of students per full-time faculty member in other provinces hovered around 20-1, the Ontario ratio rose from 22-1 in the fall of 2000 to 27-1 by 2005-06 as the “double cohort” entered the university system.

A slight improvement occurred as the bulk of the double cohort completed their undergraduate studies, but the ratio looks to be worsening again. Even if universities hired as many full-time faculty as they planned in their Multi-Year Accountability Agreements (and the evidence to date suggests they have not), the ratio is now approaching 28 students for each full-time faculty member.

Higher student-to-faculty ratios mean larger classes, less student interaction with faculty, and reduced course choices. In order to preserve the quality of higher education in Ontario, we need to hire new full-time faculty – and we need to start doing it now.

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If you were trying to make an argument against higher education, you could not do a better job of it than the striking students of Quebec. A more self-serving, self-satisfied, self-dramatizing collection of idiots could not have been assembled in one place without prolonged exposure to Foucault and Lacan.

The students have been “on strike,” i.e. skipping classes, for months in protest against a scheduled increase in tuition fees. Until lately they have relied upon intimidating other students and annoying the public; in recent days they have displayed an escalating propensity to outright violence. All in response to a plan that, while it will oblige them to pay much more than they were, will still leave them paying much less than students in the rest of Canada.

The 75% increase in fees over five years would raise the basic undergraduate tuition fee to $3,792 — versus the $5,000 or more common in other provinces. That would still leave Quebec’s undergraduates paying just 17% of the costs of their education. Indeed, it is just enough to return fees, frozen for many years in the province, to where they were in 1968, after inflation.

Nevertheless, that could still pose a barrier to students from poorer families. That is, it might have, had not the province offset the increase in tuition with an equally hefty increase in bursaries: enough to entirely wipe out the increase for anyone on low income.

So what we are left with is a collection of mostly well-to-do students — for that is who, disproportionately, go on to higher education, for reasons that have less to do with fees than with family background, starting with whether their parents did — agitating against any increase in the amount they contribute to their own education, preferring instead that they should be supported out of general revenues. And, by and large, I agree with them.

Well, in a way. All of the things I’ve said above are true, not just of Quebec, but for the country as a whole. Students, especially in undergraduate programs, still pay a fraction of the cost of their education, though they tend to come from wealthier-than-average families and though the cost of their education, as every study shows, will be repaid many times over in the higher earnings they will enjoy.

That argues pretty strongly that students should pay a greater share of the tab. Indeed, I’d argue they should pay all of it. This isn’t only a matter of fairness. When universities depend on students, rather than governments, for the greater part of their revenues, they will devote a lot more energy and resources to their core mission — teaching students — than they do now. Conversely, students who are paying full freight will devote a good deal more time and attention to getting the most out of the experience than, for example, I did.

But to say that students should pay more does not mean they should pay now. It isn’t so much the cost of tuition that can impede accessibility as the timing. It’s all very well to provide assistance to students in need, but it is sometimes unclear exactly who is in need: just because a student’s parents have adequate income does not mean he does. Student loans, meanwhile, impose the same monthly payment schedule, regardless of the ups and downs — or just downs — a recent graduate’s earnings may experience.

So while it is true that there is little correlation between tuition fees and access overall — about the same proportion of Quebec’s population goes on to higher education as in the other provinces — that does not mean all is well. The one-third increase in student fees (after inflation) across the country over the last decade has been accompanied by a similar increase in student debt. Even at current historically low interest rates that cannot be an easy thing to carry around. One-third of graduates reported difficulties repaying their student loans in 2007, versus one-quarter 20 years before.

As I say, it’s cash flow that’s the issue, not the amount. So: What if, instead of paying tuition now, students could pay it later? That is, what if they were staked all or most of the money up front, and repaid it over the course of their working life? Only what if, instead of repaying principal plus interest in fixed amounts, as with conventional loans, they paid a share of their earnings? As they earned more, they’d pay more; as they earned less, they’d pay less.

The model is not new. It’s sometimes called an income contingent loan, or a graduate tax. But in reality, it’s not a loan or a tax. It’s an investment. Think of a student as a kind of high-tech startup firm. Like students, these entrepreneurs are often wary of taking on debt, again because of cash-flow uncertainties. (For their part, banks aren’t always keen to lend to them, given the difficulties of assessing the risks of such enterprises.) So typically they turn to venture capitalists, who take a share of a firm’s equity in return for their investment, rather than charge interest.

That’s what the government (it could even be the universities themselves) would be doing here. In return for investing in students’ “human capital,” they’d be entitled to a share of students’ lifetime earnings. That’s not only fairer to students, it’s fairer to everyone: fix the cash-flow question, and you can begin to ask students to pay the full cost of their education.

Indeed, a modest scheme along these lines was proposed earlier this month by the Charest government, in an attempt to mollify the strikers. It doesn’t seem to have worked.

< http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/04/20/andrew-coyne-overhauling-how-students-pay-for-education/#more-75533 >

The average annual increase of 1.9 per cent in post-secondary and training announced in the recently tabled provincial budget may bring a sigh of relief in some corners. At first pass, it does seem better than the 1.5 per cent average recommended by the Drummond Commission.

A closer look is far more disturbing.

The projected 1.9 per cent increase is based on “all-in” expenditures by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU), including operating and capital funding for universities and colleges, student support, and employment and training programs. Plans for the next three years of operating funding for universities actually limit increases to an average of 1.1 per cent per year.

Operating funding per funding-eligible student will decline once enrolment growth and the budget’s own assumptions for GDP inflation are taken into account. Per student funding has in fact been in decline since the financial crisis hit in 2008-09. The budget does nothing to help. By 2014-15, OCUFA projects that public operating funding for universities will drop by16 per cent. This is a huge loss in revenue that, if left unfilled, will damage the quality of higher education in Ontario. History tells us that institutions will attempt to fill the gap with higher tuition fees, continuing the unsustainable shift of costs onto students.

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It’s reflexive in certain quarters, especially when teachers unions are up in arms, to chastise Canada’s school systems for all manner of weaknesses. Facts, as we know, never deflect ideology, or else some of these now-ritualistic attacks would have long yielded to a more balanced analysis.

Canadian teachers are among the best paid in the world. They have no claim whatsoever to even more during tough fiscal times. Their strike in British Columbia and their grumbling in Ontario are unjustified.

And yet, teachers deliver very good results, judged by international tests. Far from being the shipwreck some describe, Canadian school systems have produced some of the best test scores in the world: second best in the Western world (after Finland) and behind only Korea and Japan in Asia. Canadian results shame those in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and France.

With all its faults, Canadian school systems deliver value for money judged by outcomes that can be compared internationally, something that can’t be said for the health-care system. Teachers and the organization of the school system contribute to these results; family support (especially a respect for learning), cultural assumptions and community norms are also critical – more critical than class size or school funding formulas.

So why would anyone, given the international evidence, pull away from such a system? Apparently, Canada’s aboriginals want to – or at least their leadership does. And so does the recent panel on First Nation Elementary and Secondary Education for Students on Reserve.

Note the words “on reserve.” This three-person study, appointed by Ottawa and the Assembly of First Nations, looked only at education on reserves that produce, sadly but predictably, very substandard results – as for every other indicator of social and economic well-being from employment to poverty, infant mortality to child abuse, earned income to per capita income.

Reading this report was like going back to the 1960s when “child-centred education” was in vogue. Everything in schools was to become culturally sensitive. Objective measurements were deemed bad for pedagogy. Self-affirmation by students was in; measuring up was out. Tests were bad, report cards a thing of the past.

The “child-centred” philosophy proved disastrous and, by the 1980s, parents and ordinary citizens were up in arms. Their struggle met resistance from civil servants in the education ministries, the teachers unions and university theorists. Eventually, the pressure from parents, coupled with the decline in students’ results, ended the “child-centred” system and ushered in a more balanced approach. Similarly, Asian immigrants thought the “child-centred approach” to be rubbish. Today, the much improved results for Canadian students reflect the abandonment of the philosophy of this latest report on aboriginal education.

The report, which uses the phrase “child-centred” as a mantra, is heavy with new structures and systems designed to give on-reserve Indians the power to run school systems themselves, with or without links to the provincial school system.

The report is long on aboriginal students feeling good and short on practicalities. Is there, for example, a “funding gap” between aboriginal schools and provincial ones? Aboriginal groups insist the gap is wide; the Aboriginal Affairs Department told the Auditor-General last year that no such gap exists. Or how would a National Commission for First Nation Education possibly operate, even with provincial chapters, for more than 600 aboriginal communities, many with fewer than 500 people?

Systems and structures are fine and necessary, as is proper funding. But the University of Ottawa’s Ross Finnie (among others) has convincingly shown that results from formal education have more to do with parental attitudes, cultural assumptions about the importance of education and community norms than anything else.

Which means that aboriginal education can’t be divorced from its core contextual problem – the reserves themselves that the panel correctly notes display socio-economic and health inequities, poverty, suicides, youth incarceration and abuse, high teen pregnancy rates, lower life expectancy and chronic disease.

Fix those problems, which flow from the reserve system, and better educational results have a chance.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/it-still-comes-down-to-fixing-the-reserves/article2368368/ >

A child growing up on a reserve has to decide: Shall I live on-reserve or “go to town” and adapt to life in mainstream Canada? Both should be viable options. To make them viable, reserve schools have two major tasks – to teach traditional culture and the core competencies of reading, writing, science and mathematics necessary for success in the mainstream economy. With honourable exceptions, on-reserve schools are failing at both tasks.

That is the first message to take from the report of the panel on K-12 on-reserve education released this month. This panel was a joint venture of the Assembly of First Nations and the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. In the diplomatic language of the panel’s report, “The education attainment among first nation students is not sufficiently strong … to allow them to reach their potential.”

“Not sufficiently strong” is a serious understatement. Over the past two decades, reserve schools have made negligible progress in terms of reducing dropout rates. Among young first nations adults, ages 20-24, about 60 per cent living on-reserve are without a high-school certificate; even among those living off-reserve 30 per cent have incomplete secondary studies. The figure among young non-aboriginal Canadians is 13 per cent.

So what can be done to bring about convergence of school outcomes between first nations students and other Canadian children?

Rightly, the panel insists there is no silver bullet. The sad legacy of residential schools justifies a certain skepticism toward formal schooling among first nations leaders. Even with generous budgets, organizing successful schools in isolated communities – aboriginal or not – is hard to do well. And many reserve school budgets are not adequate.

But there are other reasons. The panel identifies an important barrier to education success: “The education ‘system’ for first nations students on reserve is a far cry from any system that other Canadians would recognize in terms of … degree of input, accountability, and democratic governance most Canadians take for granted.” Reserve schools operate, the panel concludes, in a “non-system.” Each band council runs its own school much as, a century ago, each rural municipality in the Prairies ran its own one- or two-room school.

In diplomatic language, members of this panel are advising band chiefs and councils on the need for “first nation education authorities” – in other words, the need to professionalize school management by introducing school boards that assume responsibility for running a number of reserve schools across, say, all of southern Saskatchewan or northern Manitoba. Such “authorities” would be democratically accountable to the first nations living within the region, but schools would no longer be primarily accountable to individual band councils.

The panel members insist there should be no standardized “education authority” imposed from one end of the country to the other. Nonetheless, they acknowledge a necessary condition for better school outcomes is that “education authorities” be able to exercise many of the activities performed by school boards for provincial schools. These include hiring of teachers, including specialist teachers, who may rotate among schools based on need, negotiating salaries and terms of teacher employment, designing curriculum, testing and reporting student outcomes.

In addition to “education authorities” there are other recommendations, such as a first nations education act and a national commission for first nations education “to support education reform and improvement.” As expected, panel members call for increased and stable funding.

It is too soon to know whether there will be “an understanding” or whether this report will be ignored. Skeptics can point to a long list of ignored reports – by the Senate, by the auditor-general, by policy institutes, by aboriginal and non-aboriginal academics – all of which contain pleas for reform of the reserve school “non-system.” Skeptics will remind us that shortly after this panel was formed, some provincial first nations organizations condemned it as a threat to treaty rights. Opposition MPs may seek partisan advantage and damn the government for having taken six years before turning to the problem. Government MPs may retort that, when in office, the Liberals did no better.

The skeptics may well be right; I hope not.

John Richards teaches at Simon Fraser University’s Public Policy School and holds the Roger Phillips chair in social policy at the C.D. Howe Institute.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/putting-the-system-in-education-for-on-reserve-students/article2349550/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Politics&utm_content=2349550 >

As Don Drummond’s landmark report on the reform of Ontario’s public services bluntly notes, universities in Ontario are on a financially unsustainable path.

Costs have been rising at a rate of about 5 per cent per cent annually, mainly driven by compensation increases, but government funding on a per student basis has not risen in more than a decade. Even with tuition increasing at around 5 per cent a year, universities are faced each year with a 2-3 per cent gap between expenditures and revenues. Most universities have attempted to close this gap by cutting budgets and taking in more students, resulting in larger class sizes and increasing reliance on part-time faculty.

What is disappointing about Drummond’s report is that having clearly identified the pressing fiscal challenges facing universities, he fails to propose a strategy for successfully addressing them.

First, while Drummond proposes that government funding to post-secondary institutions increase at an annual rate of 1.5 per cent, he projects enrolment growth of 1.7 per cent annually. Thus, Drummond is actually proposing to reduce government grants on a per student basis, despite the fact that, as he acknowledges, government grants to universities in Ontario are the lowest in Canada. Even if tuition were to continue to increase at 5 per cent (as Drummond recommends), the annual shortfall between expenditures and revenues would widen to the point where universities would be forced to make drastic cuts that would undermine quality.

Drummond does propose a reduction in bargained compensation increases in the university sector in order to “align them with trends in more recent settlements in the broader public sector.” But he offers no mechanism or framework that might produce this result, other than to suggest that government should “work with the sector,” an approach that has been tried many times in the past with minimal concrete results.

He also proposes that universities refocus resources and rewards towards teaching. This kind of refocusing might be possible in an environment where resources were expanding, but seems totally unrealistic in a context where overall resources available to universities are shrinking.

At the same time as Drummond proposes less money for universities, he also recommends reducing the flexibility of institutions through negotiation of “mandate agreements”. In theory, these mandate agreements would set out clear expectations and roles for each university and encourage differentiation within the sector. In practice, however, this kind of framework would likely privilege the status quo, make innovation and change more difficult, and limit the ability of universities to respond to changing circumstances.

For example, my home institution, York University, is planning a major expansion in our summer semester offerings in 2012, in light of the fact that the government grant of $800 will be available to students who may be attending university elsewhere during the academic year but are residing in the GTA in the summer. But if we had negotiated a mandate agreement that failed to envisage this possibility, we would likely be required to obtain the approval of the government before proceeding. This could lead to delay and effectively block initiative, thereby depriving students of the opportunity to access the government tuition grant this summer.

In short, Drummond’s report clearly identifies the urgent problems facing Ontario universities. The danger is that the government will see the report as justifying a simple cost-cutting exercise, which will only exacerbate the universities’ unsustainable fiscal position without giving them the tools they need to attempt to deal with the challenges they face.

Patrick J. Monahan is Vice President Academic and Provost of York University.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1136038–drummond-promises-less-money-reduced-flexibility-for-cash-strapped-ontario-universities >

After reviewing the final report of the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services, faculty and academic librarians are unimpressed. Drummond has provided Ontario with a poor plan for ‘transforming’ our public services, and is essentially a plan for huge cuts to public spending hiding behind a screen of poorly costed and ill-considered recommendations for change. In particular, the report:

1. Is based on a variety of questionable economic assumptions, predictions and forecasts;
2. Is first and foremost a plan for significant cuts to spending, including university funding;
3. Sets the stage for hard-bargaining throughout the broader public service;
4. Proposes a funding framework for higher education that does not keep pace with inflation or enrolment, and as the paper admits, will lead to a decline in quality;
5. Provides recommendations for generating efficiency and savings in the higher education sector, with no evidence of how this will happen or how much it will save;
6. Proposes shifting educational cost onto the backs of students and their families; and
7. Relies on third-party policy entrepreneurs for research, much of which is incorrect.

In short, this is not the way forward for Ontario. The downturn-as-justification-for-cuts scenario is an old one, and it has been rejected by the public before. It is now critical that the Government of Ontario pursue an alternative strategy that takes into account the needs and concerns of Ontarians – a strategy that protects education, promotes effective economic and social development,  and rejects the logic of austerity.

Download the OCUFA Analysis

Reality Check: The Drummond Report is a cut any way you slice it
The Drummond Report claims that it “protects annual growth in post-secondary funding at a time when many other public services will be rationalized.” True, it does recommend that postsecondary expenditures continue to increase by 1.5 per cent per year. But a quick look at the data reveals the truth: Drummond actually recommending a severe cut to the operating budgets of our institutions.

On the commission’s own assumptions and proposals – 1.7 per cent annual enrolment growth, 1.9 per cent annual inflation, and 1.5 per cent annual increases in post-secondary funding – per student funding will decline by 12 per cent between now and 2017-18.

If university funding is allocated according to the enrolment balance of college, undergraduate and graduate students who are eligible for funding, inflation-adjusted provincial funding per college student could fall by $790, and per undergraduate student could decline by almost $940. For graduate students, the reduction could be $2,280.

You can call a cut an increase, Mr. Drummond, but you can’t hide the data.

Source: Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities for enrolment data; Ministry of Finance for Expenditure Estimates.

< http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=ca9b5c14da55e36f1328eb0f1&id=4089f439c9 >

Ontario universities need to cut undergraduate degrees from four to three years, offer classes year-round and allow students to earn more than half their credits online, says a government paper obtained by the Star.

The proposals would get students through university or college cheaper and faster — the report says college diplomas should be two years at most — while still offering a quality post-secondary education.

“The ultimate goal of this strategy is to improve student choice, maintain the quality of the system and to refocus the system on a flexible and forward-looking set of teaching and learning options,” says the paper, which is to be sent out for discussion in March. “(It) will improve the existing productivity of publicly funded resources.”

But critics have their doubts, saying three-year degrees won’t be recognized in other provinces or the U.S., online learning is no replacement for on campus, and that students need summers off to be able to afford tuition.

Besides, online courses aren’t always less expensive, said James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers.

“That it’s a cheaper way to provide education is an illusion if you think you are going to maintain the same quality,” said Turk, who had not seen the report.

As well, “the experience of going to school sitting in your home bedroom is different than being on campus interacting with other students and faculty.”

Colleges and Universities Minister Glen Murray said the report is a look at trends around the world and presents possible areas for change.

“All three (proposals) that are considered in the report are things that are happening in other parts of the world,” he said in a phone interview.

He said the report was prepared by his staff, who were asked to compile options that will then go out for public consultation. “There’s still a lot more work to do,” he stressed.

The report — tentatively entitled 3 Cubed: PSE institutions as centres of creativity, competency and citizenship equipped for the 21st century — says post-secondary education needs to be relevant and flexible given the increased demand for college and university.

While Ontario universities have largely moved away from three-year bachelor degrees, the reports says that’s the trend in Europe and Australia.

Some 49 European countries have agreed to the same standard of three-year bachelor degrees, two-year master’s degrees and three-year PhDs. The three-year undergraduate degree would not apply to programs that require professional accreditation, such as engineering.

It says that by making degree completion times shorter, students are able to get into the labour market faster and reduce the cost of their post-secondary studies to both themselves and taxpayers.

Upon graduation, students would receive a government-issued degree or diploma, as well as credentials from the school.

It’s unclear how a two-year limit to college diplomas could affect a push by Ontario colleges to offer more bachelor degrees.

The report says with online learning, professors could have more time to meet and mentor students.

“Technology is driving changes worldwide in education and it is important that Ontario recognize and respond to these changes in order that credentials from Ontario PSE institutions hold their value,” it says.

But Sandy Hudson of the Canadian Federation of Students said the province’s four-year degrees are already recognized nationally and internationally, and warns that three-year degrees might not be — especially in the U.S.

She also said students could be disadvantaged when applying for jobs if they have a lesser degree than graduates from other provinces.

Some university buildings are used in the summer for research work, courses and conferences, she said, so offering a summer semester with full course offerings might not be easy.

Hudson also said that summer months are the best — and best-paying — time for university students to work.

The report says students should be able to take three of every five credits online, and that those courses should be recognized by all Ontario universities. It also calls for an easier system of transferring students’ credits if they switch institutions.

Hudson said online courses should be available to students who can’t find a course they’d like to take at their institution, but they should not make up the bulk of their learning.

“If students are taking three of five online, if that’s the norm in Ontario, employers are going to know that students are not getting real class time, real lab time, real teaching assistance and research assistance to help them actually develop skills. There’s so much left out of learning if it just happens online.”

The report says pilot programs for the new three-year degrees should begin in September 2013, with rollout by 2015.

It is in part a way to fulfill a promise to add 60,000 new student spaces in Ontario’s post-secondary sector at a time when the province is in dire financial circumstances.

Some of the recommendations were also contained in last week’s report to the government by economist Don Drummond, which urged universities to compress four-year degrees into three.

However, in a recent survey of Ontario students, just 41 per cent found the shorter degree appealing; 59 per cent said they were not interested, citing a heavier workload.

Currently, 45 per cent of university students complete a degree in four years. After six years, 80 per cent have completed their degree.

< http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1135296–ontario-universities-should-offer-three-year-degrees-classes-year-round-and-more-online-learning-says-provincial-report >

OCUFA is criticizing the report of the Drummond Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services for being long on cuts and short on insights. Taken together, Drummond’s recommendations would continue the erosion of educational quality at Ontario’s universities and colleges.

“Drummond recognizes that higher education is severely underfunded. He also recognizes that universities and colleges are the keys to social vitality and economic success,” said Constance Adamson, OCUFA President. “True ‘transformational change’ requires the courage to fund the sector at a level that allows it to succeed. By only fiddling around the margins, Drummond is proposing that higher education drive Ontario forward on a half-empty tank.”

Drummond’s chief recommendation is that government funding of universities and colleges be limited to 1.5 per cent per year. As the report itself points out, this is an effective cut to higher education funding that does not keep pace with enrolment or inflation. Ontario’s universities already receive 25 per cent less per-student funding than they did in 1990; Drummond’s recommendations will make this under-funding even worse.

Drummond’s recommendations also contain serious factual errors. He recommends that Ontario faculty contracts be brought in line with the broader public sector. In 2011, faculty compensation increases were below both the private sector and broader public sector, at 1.5 per cent. The report further recommends that faculty be given more flexibility to adjust how much teaching and research they do. Right now, almost all of Ontario faculty’s collective agreements allow them to do exactly that.

“If Drummond had bothered to ask Ontario faculty about their jobs, we could have given him a better idea of what was actually going on. As it is, his picture is incomplete,” said Adamson.

“Overall, Drummond is asking Ontario’s universities to do more with less. But in the face of steadily rising enrolment, this just means less for our students: less interaction with professors, fewer learning choices, and more barriers to young people seeking an exceptional experience.”

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