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Ironic were it not so tragic By Paddy Musson, The Investing in Students Task Force is a perverse document that accurately identifies a number of problems facing post-secondary education in Ontario, but then makes recommendations that will exacerbate those problems. For example, it talks at length about the need for more centralized registration and student services, about harmonizing financial assistance programs, about collaborative work on infrastructure, curriculum, best teaching practices and shared technology. Then it recommends abolishing the Council of Regents, which is the body that does all these things for the college system. Abolition of the Council of Regents would take a defined college system and convert it into a patchwork of warring duchies. It talks about the importance of collaboration for communities that are having trouble surviving, and access to education for special populations such as francophone and aboriginal students. Then it recommends eliminating the geographic basis for the colleges which ensures that these needs are met. By definition the harder-to-serve sectors where survival is at stake will not attract the private sector investment the task force suggests will save the system. It talks about the importance of accountability, yet recommends giving greater power to individual college boards – volunteer members who provide a valuable sounding board to the colleges. Given the opportunity to vote on taking over direct collective bargaining, college governors voted against it. They do not want this and other responsibilities currently handled by the Council of Regents. Most members of college boards of governors are products, not of the college system but of the universities. Many have no clear vision of the role of the colleges in post-secondary education. In effect, this measure would give power not to the college boards, but to the college presidents. It would reduce public accountability and increase competitiveness between the fiefdoms it would create. This flies in the face of the task force’s recommendations for increased collaboration. It talks about seeking greater input from students – the most vulnerable members of the college community. Certainly students have a great deal to say about the education they are receiving, and they should be heard and considered. But they are also most susceptible to pressure. Nowhere does the task force suggest that teachers’ voices should be heard and their views considered. Nor does it suggest that graduates should have something to say. And in recommending reports on mission, strategies, accomplishments and finances, it ignores the issue of quality. In the last decade, the college system has had a 35 per cent increase in students combined with a 32 per cent reduction in faculty. Without a doubt, quality has been squeezed in the process. The task force recommends creating a single seamless system-wide transfer system for the post-secondary sector, which students and institutions could understand. Within the college system, there is such a program. It’s called Prior Learning Assessment. PLA, however, like so much within the system, suffers from a chronic lack of funds. The answer is to put money into PLA, rather than to create something new, which would cost even more money. The report urges students and families to make an early start in planning for the cost of post-secondary education. This is something the wealthy need no urging to accomplish. They have always planned for the schooling of their offspring. But it suggests a naïve expectation that the vast majority of Ontario families have sufficient disposable income to do this. For many families it would rob tonight’s dinner table to pay for education 10 or 15 years down the line. It puts too much of the onus on the individual student and family, without sufficient recognition that the economy of the entire province benefits from a well-educated workforce. The report pays lip service to the need for Ontario’s post-secondary institutions to participate in "global competition for talent" while facing a record number of students, aging structures, a situation where many faculty are nearing retirement, and growing technological needs. But at the same time it talks about maximizing existing resources and infrastructure – code words for no influx of new money. The challenges facing the colleges, including those of attracting and retaining new faculty, will necessitate higher salaries and better tools for teaching. One of the roles the Council of Regents plays in the college system is the management side in collective bargaining. One contract covers all the faculty at all 25 colleges, and another covers all the support staff. Eliminating the Council of Regents could mean negotiating 50 contracts instead of two. This would siphon significant resources away from the mission of teaching and learning and pour it into collective bargaining. Colleges in more marginal areas would fall behind in salaries, lose staff, and slowly close their doors – destroyed by a change in structure recommended by a task force which also recommends incentives for "collaboration that is even more vital and urgent for francophone, rural and northern institutions." It would be ironic were it not so tragic. Noteworthy throughout the report is a stunning absence of input from front line staff or any recognition that teachers have a central place in any educational system. No union representative took part in the task force’s roundtable discussions. When OPSEU, which represents 6,000 teachers and 5,600 support staff in the colleges, asked to attend, it was turned down. If the provincial government chooses to act on the recommendations of this task force, it will put post-secondary education in Ontario through the same chaos it inflicted on the hospital scene with hospital restructuring. The recommendations are ill thought out to achieve the stated goals – many of which are obviously a good idea. The college system has been weakened by underfunding, but its basic structure is sound. The Council of Regents is a public body that has done a great deal to encourage integration and collaboration. The task force, by its own acknowledgements, consulted with the association representing college management and college presidents. Many college presidents look to their counterparts in the universities and dream of self-sufficient power. They see the Council of Regents as a meddling outsider, rather than as the vehicle for public accountability that it is.
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Ontario Public Service Employees Union, 100 Lesmill Rd. Toronto, ON M3B 3P8 (416) 443-8888 www.opseu.org |
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