Community Colleges
May 22, 2007
To the editor, Globe and Mail:
RE: A call to end ‘academic snobbery’ and ‘Colleges
must return to vocational role’ by Elizabeth Church – Globe and Mail, May 22
It’s great to see Canada’s national newspaper focus
on the role of the colleges in providing higher education. As president of
the union representing 9,000 full-time faculty and 7,000 full-time support
staff, at Ontario’s 24 colleges, I’d like to point out that the problems in
the colleges run deeper than even outgoing Humber President Robert Gordon
maintains.
College administrations, in their longing to rub
elbows with university presidents, have sacrificed quality education in
their core activities to fund a few degree programs. Ontario colleges have
not recuperated from the underfunding during the Harris years. But, more
than this, one has to ask about the allocation of scarce resources.
Our concerns include: Lack of accountability of the
24 college administrations; lack of central direction and planning from the
Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities; the abuse of 17,000
part-time workers who have no workplace rights, and the impact of this abuse
on the quality of education students receive; the workplace health and
safety of academic and support staff; communities in danger of losing their
‘community college.’
These and other issues must be addressed by the
current Ontario government in order for the colleges to fulfil the mandate
for which they were originally intended: not to be pale imitations of
universities, but to provide the high-quality practical, community-based
education Ontario colleges were known for.
Sincerely,
Warren (Smokey) Thomas President, Ontario Public
Service Employees Union
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