Two reports, both published in the last few
days, should give our Government cause for pause as they think about reducing
funding for post-secondary education in Alberta. We are not in good shape.
The first is the annual
rankings of Universities around the world. Canada has just three in the top
100 – University of Toronto (16), McGill (35) and UBC (37). For engineering, we
can add Waterloo (68). No Alberta
institution makes this grade. What is interesting is that the middle of this
list is now increasingly featuring Asian and Latin American institutions.
Sometime ago, the University of Alberta indicated its intention to be on this
list. It is not.
The second report is from the Higher Education
Quality Council of Ontario, which looked at the performance of Canadian
institution in terms of key outcomes - job qualifications and earnings; access to
education based on levels of student aid and debt; research funding and
reputation. Again, Alberta did not appear to be the shining star of Canada.
Indeed, we had the second worst outcomes overall in Canada, slightly ahead of Saskatchewan.
The report indicates we are a high cost, low outcome performer.
No doubt the
Government of Alberta will seize on this point – “high cost, low outcome” – and
blame those who lead and manage our Universities. In some cases, this may well
be correct. But the reality is that the Government keeps changing the rules of
the game. Making Mount Royal and McEwan Universities, expanding private
Universities, permitting degree granting for Colleges, capping tuition, developing
clear and focused research strategies which may be appropriate but don't match
the skills and capacities of our institutions, changing the basis of funding –
all lead to Presidents and their leadership teams working in an atmosphere of
constant uncertainty. The high point of this was the difference between a
planned addition of monies quickly followed by a budget reduction, all within
2.5 months during the brief tenure of one Minister.
What Alberta needs is
a focused strategy for its post-secondary system that goes beyond the crude rhetoric
of “skills” and “employability” (not that these are unimportant). Just what do
we want our universities and colleges to contribute and what is a plan for
enabling this to occur with a sense of stability and focus so that leaders can
lead and managers can manage.
Something needs to
happen in any case. We sit with our major Universities running deficits and one
– Athabasca University – in deep
and serious trouble. A bold decision has to be made – merge it with McEwan,
close it (it's a jewel in Canada’s crown – our only open university), privatize it or create some kind of
public:private partnership.
Making this decision
will tell us a lot about the way the Wildrose Prentice Government sees
universities.
When Janet Tully and I
wrote our book Rethinking
Post-Secondary Education we explored the changes which need to occur
because the world of higher education is fast changing. We outlined a great
many options and strategies which need to be considered, but the key is public
commitment to public education. As funding per capita for higher education
students declines in real terms, it gets more difficult to be strategic – Presidents
and their teams are in “reaction” and “problem solving” mode more often than in
planning and development mode. I know, I have been at the table. What they need
now is long term, stable funding decisions and a Government that gets out of
the way so that they can do the institution building and transformations they
see as appropriate to their strategic intent.
Cutting them now at
10% and making no decisions about their future will increase the uncertainty
and cause more harm than good. Money isn’t everything with respect to this
challenge, as the HEQC of Ontario report makes clear. But it certainly helps.
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