Chris Bentley, Ontario's minister of training, colleges and universities was the guest expert for today's education forum, answering your questions on the province's tuition rates, apprenticeships and the college strike, among other issues.
Q: Is your government concerned with the fact that hundreds of students wishing to become say teachers, or doctors, leave the province because they can't get a space in those programs in an Ontario university? What plans do you have to change our brain drain?
A: Our Reaching Higher plan represents $6.2 billion in new investments for post-secondary education - the largest multi-year investment in Ontario’s higher education system in 40 years. Our plan will ensure that more Ontarians have the opportunity to pursue higher quality postsecondary education that is affordable and accessible. When a province fully maximizes its human potential, it fully maximizes its economic potential and everyone benefits.
We are increasing first-year undergraduate medical enrolment by 23 per cent. This includes the introduction of 104 new first-year medical school spaces, between 2005-06 and 2008-09, and 56 new first-year spaces at Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) in 2005-06.
This enrolment expansion includes the creation of new undergraduate medical campuses in 4 communities; St. Catharines and Kitchener-Waterloo (McMaster), Windsor (UWO) and Mississauga (U of T).
The Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM), with campuses in Thunder Bay and Sudbury, is attracting physicians to northern communities. It began admitting 56 students per year in 2005-06.
Our government invested $5M in operating funding and $5M in capital in 2004-05 to increase the number of Family Medicine residency positions at Ontario medical schools by 70 percent, to help the province meet the shortage of family practitioners.
In 2004, our government introduced a new centralized assessment service for international medical graduates known as IMG-Ontario - a service that helps IMGs with training opportunities in Ontario. In 2005-06, we’re continuing to offer 200 training opportunities for our international medical graduates each year – more than double the number of training spots in 2003-04. Education Minister Gerard Kennedy and I agree on our need to ensure that Ontario has a sufficient number of qualified teachers. That is why our government has allocated funding to increase the number of spaces in faculties of education. In December 2003, our government announced funding of $7.5 million to maintain 1,000 spaces for the 2004/05 academic year, and in the May 18, 2004 Provincial Budget, we allocated an additional $7.5 million to provide an additional 1,000 spaces in faculties of education for the 2005/06 academic year. The addition of these spaces maintains funded enrolment in consecutive teacher education programs at 6,500 spaces, and represents a total new investment of $15 million by our government in support of teacher education. Be assured that I will continue to work with Minister Kennedy to support high-quality teacher education in the province.
More generally, under the Reaching Higher plan we are increasing graduate enrolment by 14,000 by 2009-10, a 65 per cent increase. This important increase will ensure more opportunities for advanced education in both research stream and professional stream programs that are vital to Ontario's economic prosperity.
Q: What is your government doing to address the shortage of skilled workers? It seems to me that rather than pouring money into universities you should be sending it to the trades.
A: On November 23, 2005, I signed historic Labour Market Development and Labour Market Partnership Agreements with the federal government.
Together, these two agreements will allow the ministry to integrate labour market programs in Ontario and expand programs to provide more training, apprenticeship and labour market services.
The LMDA will provide Ontario with approximately $580 million annually, and the LMPA funding transferred to Ontario will grow to an annual total of $157 million by 2009-10 to help serve Ontarians. In addition, the federal government will spend an amount growing to $157 million in Ontario through federal labour market programs.
The McGuinty government recognizes the importance of apprenticeship and has made a significant commitment that will ensure Ontario’s apprenticeship system provides Ontario with the skilled workforce needed to compete in today’s economy.
The Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities has made a commitment to increase the number of new apprenticeship registrations by 7,000 to a total of 26,000 annually in 2007-08.
We are implementing a strategy to increase the number of apprenticeships in the province by encouraging greater participation among both employers and young people. We are bringing our training delivery partners together to promote skilled trades so that students are aware of the full range of rewarding occupations that are available.
Our government has introduced several initiatives to increase access to the skilled trades, including: an Apprenticeship Training Tax Credit; expanding academic upgrading options for early high school leavers; an Apprenticeship Scholarship and Employer Signing Bonus; and an expansion of the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program and the Pre-apprenticeship Program.
We have also expanded the Co-op Diploma Apprenticeship Program. The Co-op Diploma Apprenticeship Program combines a college diploma program and apprenticeship training leading to a Certificate of Qualification. Workplace training is an integral and significant component of the Co-op Diploma Apprenticeship Program.
Q: One of the key issues in the current strike is a decline in the quality of applied learning at the colleges (increased class sizes, less classroom time, fewer full-time faculty, equipment shortages, aging infrastructure and equipment). This has been driven by historic underfunding. Why are the provincial funding grants to full-time students in college programs only about 75 per cent of the grants to full-time students in university programs? Is your government planning to correct this funding imbalance between the university and the college systems?
A: Our government has made post-secondary education a priority. This is why our government has invested $6.2 billion through the Reaching Higher Plan, the most significant multi-year investment in Ontario’s higher education system in 40 years.
In 2005-2006, colleges will receive $87.3 million through the new Quality Improvement Fund. We will work in partnership with institutions to achieve results for our increased investment in post-secondary education and provide students with a quality education.
Q: Why is there no policy link between tuition rates and the market demand for graduates? We need more engineers and doctors, yet these programs are among the least affordable. Is that a sensible approach to a skills shortage? Right now, tuition pricing is based on education as a marketable commodity that students buy, but are those price signals working for Ontario?
At my school, the median family income for new medical students jumped from the high $60K to more than $120K after only five or six years of deregulation. I'm sure you can find this kind of data easily enough.
Given the evidence, is it smart policy to limit the recruiting pool for people the province desperately needs? Shouldn't we put the heaviest tuition support into areas with severe labour shortages (nursing, medicine, machinists, etc.) and less support for lower-demand disciplines (fine arts, journalism, etc.)?
The current argument about post-graduate economic rewards seems to limit enrolment to those with the least to gain from access to high-demand professions.
A: The McGuinty government has a plan for providing the highest quality post-secondary education, accessible on the basis of ability to learn, not ability to pay.
For institutions to increase tuition fees at all, they must agree to participate in the Student Access Guarantee, which assures that no qualified Ontario student will be prevented from attending Ontario's public colleges and universities due to lack of financial support programs.
For programs with higher tuition fees, such as medicine, institutions have local student assistance funds available for students to ensure accessibility.
Tuition rates are set by college and university governing boards, and reflect factors such as cost of operating the programs, demand for instructional spaces, high employer demand for graduates and high income for employed graduates.
This is a regulated framework for all publicly funded programs. That means capped, predictable increases for all publicly funded programs.
Within the overall institutional cap of 5 per cent, the new framework allows for tuition fee differentiation based on program and program year. The new tuition fee policy continues to recognize that some programs experience high demand for both program spaces and graduates. Graduate and professional programs are permitted to increase tuition by 8 per cent for students in the first year of their program, and 4 per cent in subsequent years, must meet criteria such as demand for instructional spaces, high employer demand for graduates and high income for employed graduates.
Q: An educated workforce is essential to Ontario's future in this fast-paced and ever changing world, and right now too many students are prevented from attaining a higher education due to the high and increasing tuition fees. If a poor country like Cuba can provide free education for all qualified students right through university, why can't a rich province like Ontario afford to provide free university and college education to all those who show an appropriate aptitude?
A: In 2005-06, the government identified post-secondary education as a priority and announced the Reaching Higher Plan, a plan to improve both the quality and affordability of post-secondary education. The Reaching Higher Plan is based on the principle that post-secondary education benefits society as a whole as well as the individual. It is also based on a goal of providing the highest quality post-secondary education to support Ontario's economy and individual Ontarian's prosperity.To this end, the Reaching Higher Plan includes an investment of $6.2 billion by the end of 2009-10, the biggest single investment in Ontario's post-secondary sector in 40 years. Further, the government's tuition fee policy acknowledges that a post-secondary education provides a significant personal benefit to the student and asks that students make an investment towards their own future. We are asking students to contribute one dollar for every three dollars the government is contributing.
Our government’s recent announcement regarding the new tuition fee policy provides a framework that means the average full time fee increases will be limited to about $200 for university students, and $100 for college students. Furthermore, tuition fee increases must be tied to quality improvements and the student access guarantee that ensures that no qualified student is prevented from seeking a post-secondary education for lack of student assistance programming. Quality improvements and access for students will be ensured through multi-year accountability agreements that every institution will be required to sign.
Q: Are you going to increase the fee for international students as last year? Why so much? This has no relation with the inflation in Toronto or the fee paid by the Canadian student. You are pricing yourself out the market! I let my daughters study in Canada, also to learn about non-European social and economic organization, but unfortunately in Ontario the international students can not work outside the campus and in the university the preference is given to Canadian students. In these conditions my daughters can not have a "full immersion" in the Canadian social life. Why can't international students work part-time in Canada? Is this something your government is willing to address?
A: This tuition fee framework applies only to students eligible for funding from the government of Ontario. Fees for international students are set by the institutions themselves, and are not regulated by us.
The government of Ontario recognizes that international students enrich post-secondary learning experiences in Ontario colleges and universities, and agrees that the ability to work off-campus would lighten the financial burden for international students. That is why we have lobbied the federal government to change this policy since we came into office. The federal government’s April 18, 2005 decision to allow international students to work off-campus had been eagerly anticipated by the Ontario government, universities, colleges, and international students.
On November 28th, 2005, the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities announced an agreement with the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration Canada that would allow international students to work off campus while enrolled at an eligible post secondary institution in the province. As part of this agreement and before students can apply for an off-campus work permit, the province was required to sign agreements with each eligible Ontario postsecondary educational institution that wished to participate in the program.
At this time, I am pleased to report that the province has signed agreements with all 47 Ontario colleges and universities. However, exactly when students can begin to apply and work off-campus still unknown as the program is subject to federal funding approval.
Public updates will be available on the CIC website and the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities will also post any new developments.
Q: Is there any relief for past university graduates who are saddled with debt to the banks for their education? What a way to start your life with that around your neck for years to come.
A: There are several government programs available to assist students repay their government loans:
Ontario Student Opportunity Grant: The Ontario Student Opportunity Grant (OSOG) limits Ontario students’ annual repayable Canada-Ontario Integrated Student Loan debt to $7,000 for a two-term academic year and $10,500 for a three-term academic year. OSOG is applied to the students’ debt when the academic year has been completed and all income provided on the Ontario Student Assistance Program application has been verified with the Canada Revenue Agency.
Interest Relief: Interest relief is available to borrowers who are unable to repay their loans because of low income. Borrowers are eligible for up to 30 months of Interest Relief and an additional 24 months of extended Interest Relief if additional help is required during the five-year period immediately following completion of studies. While receiving Interest Relief, borrowers are not required to make any principal or interest payments on their loans. The provincial and federal governments pay the interest on the borrowers’ behalf. The income thresholds at which borrowers are eligible for interest relief were increased by 5 per cent in 2005-06.
Debt Reduction in Repayment: Borrowers who exhaust interest relief and are still unable to meet their repayment obligations may be eligible for debt reduction. The federal government remits up to $26,000 of students’ Canada Student Loan debt. The first reduction, which occurs after a borrower has been out of school for at least five years, is up to $10,000. If following the first reduction, the borrower is still experiencing financial difficulties, a second reduction of up to $10,000 is available. A final reduction of up to $6,000 may also be granted. Each reduction has to be at least one year apart.
The provincial Debt Reduction in Repayment program implemented in 2004-05, which is similar in design to the federal program, provides up to $8,700 in remission. The first reduction is up to a maximum of $4,300 and the two subsequent reductions are up to a maximum of $2,200 each.
More detailed information on the Ontario Student Opportunity Grant, Interest Relief and Debt Reduction in Repayment programs is available on the OSAP website.
Tax Measures: The Ontario and Canada portions of the Canada-Ontario Integrated Student Loan are closely aligned with the Income Tax Act (Canada). Borrowers can claim tax credits against taxable income for interest paid on publicly-subsidized student loans.
Revision of Terms: Typically, borrowers have up to 9 ½ years to repay their student loans. Borrowers can request a revision of terms through the National Student Loan Service Centre to extend the repayment period for up to 15 years, thereby lowering the required monthly payment.
Q: Why doesn’t the province give us a break on excluding scholarship income from the calculation for the Ontario Health Premium? Because of my scholarship income I have to pay the Ontario Health Premium. This hardly seems fair, wouldn’t you agree?
A: The OHP structure has been carefully designed to be fair and equitable. By calculating the OHP amounts using taxable income, this means that the premium is based on ability to pay, without discriminating between different sources of income. This ensures that students and people with wage income are treated in the same way, which is fair for everybody. Individuals with income under $20,000 are exempt and, above that, premium levels rise with income.
Every penny of the OHP is being spent on improving our health care system. Having a well functioning system is vital for all Ontarians. Without that system and support, hospitals, clinics, doctors and nurses would not be able to provide quality individual care.
Furthermore, dedicating the revenue collected through the OHP to health spending allows the province to make investments in other programs, such as education. Implementation of the OHP ensures that rising health care costs do not crowd out the funding of other important government programs.
Q: As a faculty member concerned about the inability of both the colleges and OPSEU to reach an agreement after 14 months, I do believe you and your government's lack of leadership on this issue will guarantee the strike will continue. Please tell us exactly when your government will do what is clearly needed: legislate college faculty back to work. If you do indeed care about students, I do think you as the minister responsible need to demonstrate leadership so that this strike can be over by next week. I want to be back in the classroom now, not three weeks from now.
A: Students are everyone's first concern and we are pleased that the colleges have developed a semester completion strategy. At the same time, we want to see faculty back at work and we urge the parties to re-start their discussions. We have highly skilled mediators from the Ministry of Labour ready to help. We believe that the best solution is one worked out by the parties themselves.
Q: When the Mike Harris government was in power, there was some talk of allowing private universities in Ontario. What has happened to those plans? Did any open? What is your government’s position on that issue?
A: In April 2000, the former government announced that it was expanding access to degree programs in Ontario. The Post-secondary Education Choice and Excellence Act, 2000 (PSECE Act) was proclaimed in force effective October 1, 2001. A few private organizations have taken advantage of the opportunity to offer degree programs in Ontario.
Q: I recently received my doctoral in political science (public policy) and have a one year contract at a local university. I am teaching third-year public policy classes with class sizes as follows: 123; 134; 223. This is a huge problem and the fact is that universities are not hiring enough faculty to keep class sizes reasonable. Despite retirements, some universities have imposed hiring freezes. Moreover, they are all relying on sessional or contract instructors to teach core courses in various programs. Sessional instructors receive only about $5,000 per course. This is the job market recent grads are facing and the learning environment that students are experiencing: Instructors passing through the university instructing large classes with little support. I have decided that I will not pursue an academic career under these circumstances and a number of my colleagues who are about to complete their doctorates are trying to plan non-academic careers.
With policy expertise we are fortunate to have options. My question is: Given the importance of education in the new economy, how can your government justify underfunding universities in such a way that the quality of the education is suffering and graduates like me are opting for other types of careers? I appreciate that political scientists generally don't invent things but we do produce students with critical thinking and analytical skills.
A: Our Reaching Higher Plan represents $6.2 billion in new investments for our colleges and universities over the next five years - the most significant multi-year investment in Ontario’s higher education system in 40 years. This is an investment in Ontario’s future prosperity. It will revitalize Ontario’s higher education and training system for today’s students and future generations. Our investments will help institutions address the very kinds of issues you have identified – each in accordance with local institutional needs and priorities.
In November 2005, the Premier and I announced the new Quality Improvement Fund that will, in addition to other quality improvements, help institutions hire more support staff and faculty so that students have better access to their instructors. In 2005-2006, colleges will receive $87.3 million and universities will receive $124.2 million. To receive funding, colleges and universities will sign accountability agreements that spell out improvements to be made and the results to be achieved. We will work in partnership with institutions to achieve results for our increased investment in post-secondary education. We anticipate that universities and colleges will want to invest in additional faculty and we will be working with our institutions in the coming months to help them achieve this.
Q: Dear Minister Bentley: Are you aware that thousands of skilled, extremely qualified, and dedicated college workers lack benefits, any semblance of job security, are not covered by any employment standards, or by any limits on the amount of work that can be required of them by their superiors? Do you think that this situation, which guarantees insecure, stressed and overworked college staff, is the best route to providing quality education to Ontario's students? Could you explain why your government has not yet moved to give Ontario's 16,000 part-time college employees the right to unionize? (Or at least to legislate some minimum standards to govern their working conditions?) If your government is truly committed to providing quality education to Ontario's post-secondary students, why have you been content to sit by and watch the community college's management force a strike? When will your government step in and take real steps to protect quality education in this province? Thank you for your time.
A: Our government is committed to ensuring college students receive a quality education and all faculty members should be recognized for their hard work and commitment that contribute to this quality education system. There has been, and will continue to be, a substantial investment in colleges and universities through our government's Reaching Higher Plan.
The best solution in a labour dispute is one that is worked out by the parties themselves. We have highly skilled mediators from the Ministry of Labour who are available to assist the parties. We urge the parties to get back to the bargaining table.
The mind is a terrible thing to waste.
The trading of insults by both sides sends a deplorable message of waste and neglect. Emphasis is placed by the government on quality in the delivery of education building, modern education system, relevant and responsive to the changing demands of our environment driven by social and economic needs. There seems to be too much procrastination in keeping promises and commitments. As a concerned and caring parent, I share the burden of the young minds entrusted in the care of academic nourishment provided by the numbered effective administrators, motivated teachers and other caring parents. The purpose and business of school is to produce work that engage students and encourage them to persist when experiencing difficulties. Challenging students should have that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.
In our current situation, it is with wonder that an increased number of the youths has become apathetic and prefers social hibenation to collaboration and involvement.
Posted by: Meela Ali | March 15, 2006 at 04:06 PM
It's been said, and being said that there would be a big demand for skill
workers very soon in Canada. I think there are many youngsters ready to join as
apprentices and become skill workers, but it looks very difficult to find an
employer who likes to hire fresh people.
It would be a great help if the youths are advised, how to find an employer who
hires new people or the government should arrange to provide some basics (
theory and practical) on various trades, and then the employers would be happy
to hire them.
Posted by: Sitham | March 15, 2006 at 01:47 PM
Dear Minister Bentley,
I have read your answers to the questions posted to you and I must say I am quite dissappointed in your evasion of many of the questions and your lack of details regarding what your plans are. All you are really saying is "...our government is committed to higher educations... our govenrment will give $87.3 million for colleges this year." But where is the action? How long do we have to wait for real solutions to real problems. It truly sounds to me as if you don't really have a plan, but just a budget. As a Liberal all my life, I must say I am not impressed with the McGuinty governement. Lots of talk, but no improvements. Wiotness the Health Care Premium. I doubt people will forget this on election day.
Posted by: Len Olszewski | March 15, 2006 at 01:22 PM
In case mgmt/college teachers union reads this:
I feel like a parent scolding his kids but here goes. I feel like I'm being used as a pawn, a bargaining chip and that really angers me. Look, I don't care who started the whole college/mgmt fiasco or who's to blame. I just want it to stop and for once, I really want to go to school.
Posted by: Greg | March 15, 2006 at 01:51 AM
As a college faculty member I am disappointed in the Minister's responses. I asked a specific question regarding the provincial grant funding imbalance between full-time college students and full-time university students (colleges receive only about 75% of the university per student funding). The response was essentially “we are putting more money into the system”. While more funding is needed and welcomed, he did not explain why it is acceptable in this day and age for college students to continue to be treated as second-class citizens in the eyes of the government.
Colleges are institutions of applied learning. For this approach to be successful they require faculty with a strong background in “the real world” prior to teaching (I had 20 years in the trenches before coming to teach…what percentage of university faculty or high-school teachers can say that?). For college students to be successful, especially in the shop or laboratory environment, there needs to be significant close interaction between the faculty, and good access to modern equipment. For example having 11 students standing around while one student and a teacher program an industrial robot is not applied learning. These critical aspects of applied learning (small classes, modern equipment, and experienced faculty) generally do not come cheaply; and colleges don’t have the luxury of additional multi-million dollar research funding grants from all levels of governments to subsidize their salaries and infrastructure.
In my courses I often include elements of problem solving with regards to industrial quality issues. A key technique in solving these problems is to find the ‘root-cause’. I believe that root cause here is the massive imbalance in the value that the government puts towards a theoretical education at a university verses the applied learning in the college system, proven out by the grant funding formula discussed above and conveniently side-stepped by the minister.
Posted by: J. Galloway | March 14, 2006 at 06:25 PM
Premier McGuinty has talked a lot about the “Reaching Higher” plan that is supposed to invest $6.2 billion more into the province's postsecondary system over the next five years. I’m wondering if Minister Bentley’s government will accelerate an allocation of funds from the plan. And will he guarantee the money will be made available in the March budget?
Posted by: Alice | March 14, 2006 at 04:13 PM
Last November, the McGuinty government announced it would invest $211 million as part of the Quality Improvement Fund. The promised funds were to a) hire more support staff and faculty, b) purchase additional educational resources to provide training with up-to-date technology and c) improve student support services. I wonder if all the colleges in the province have received this money yet, especially in light of the ongoing faculty strike that is connected to under-funding in the college system. I also wonder if the government is giving its colleges a free reign in terms of how the money is allocated at each institution. Or does it require them to specifically earmark a significant portion of this money for hiring more faculty to alleviate overcrowding in classrooms?
Posted by: Vanessa | March 14, 2006 at 04:04 PM
I would like to have had Minister Bentley comment on the issue of ratios in regard to apprenticeship. Employment opportunities do exist, but only if apprentice to journeyperson ratios change to allow small rural companies to provide training to our local youth.
Posted by: Michele Leibold | March 14, 2006 at 04:00 PM
Today the colleges promised that students will be able to finish their semester. I don’t know how they can make such a guarantee. Each college must develop its own plan about how to deal with the mess of the strike and I can’t see how there can be any consistency across programs and across the province. Also, if the faculty are not inextricably linked to and meaningfully involved in the development of these plans, this guarantee has no academic credibility. Given that the provincial government oversees the college system, what will Bentley do RIGHT NOW to guarantee that students don’t lose their school year and that “earning the year” will have real academic and industry validity?
Posted by: Stephanie | March 14, 2006 at 03:54 PM
I’m a student at George Brown College and there seems to be a lot of chaos here now. Students have been getting different information; it seems the college’s messaging to both students and staff has been vague and confusing at best and deliberately obfuscating at worst. Since the colleges are directly accountable to the provincial government, I’d like to know what McGuinty intends to do to ensure that the colleges start acting responsibly, with full accountability and transparency to their students.
Posted by: Nathan | March 14, 2006 at 03:40 PM
What kind of governance does the provincial government have over the community colleges?
Your government is beginning to correct the chronic underfunding over the last several years in the post-secondary area. Yet, the local colleges can spend the increased funding they receive in any manner they wish. Therefore, it seems that no matter what your intentions are (i.e., the results you are wish to acheive with the funding) the local colleges spend the funds on whatever they want.
The McGuinty Quality Improvement Fund is a perfect example. Just under $90 million in additional funding was given to the colleges and universities to "improve the quality of education".
Within the context of the Rae Report, this means increasing the number of full time faculty. And institutions like Ryerson and the University of Toronto seem to be doing just that. Yet the colleges are not.
For example, the UofT received $16.5 million dollars and are hiring 113 full time faculty and 240 support staff. By contrast George Brown College received $3.8 million and is hiring 3 full time faculty and 27 support faculty. This faculty increment is entirely out of proportion when compared to the UofT example.
So, that is why I ask the question. What mechanism is there in place to ensure that the colleges implement your aims, and fulfill their fiduciary duty to you (and the taxpayers)?
Posted by: DG Dagee | March 14, 2006 at 03:36 PM
College students are demanding tuition refunds for classes missed and reimbursements for expenses incurred because of the strike. I’d like to know how the Minister proposes to deal with these demands. After all, we’re not getting what we paid for, and fair is fair.
Posted by: Jemal | March 14, 2006 at 03:20 PM
Sir, I am a college teacher and I am on strike. I have been teaching in an Ontario College for 20 years. I have always felt that my job was an important one - one that made a difference to the young Ontarians who chose this course of study. In recent years, colleges have become more and more 'business-oriented,' paying only lip service to the needs and success of our students. To a college administrator, a student lost to what they call 'attrition' is a loss of funding, purely and simply. The pursuit of additional funding is a full time job for college administrators.
College teachers alone do all the necessary work to educate students. We design course objectives, prepare lectures, teach in the classroom, maintain electronic sites for students' information needs, meet with students one on one for counseling and extra help with subjects, design and grade tests, exams and assignments, and more. We are dedicated to providing students with the tools they need to develop intellectually and have successful careers.
As we struggle with this responsibility, we are constantly harried and hampered by college administrations, who judge our contribution as costly and inefficient. College administrators want to lower standards for success and cram more and more students into the classroom - all in the interests of cutting costs and collecting more tuition and government grants.
College management has lost sight of the role of community colleges in Ontario. College 'mission statements' and strategic plans are marvels of 'doublespeak' and euphemisms. When they say "Student Success" they mean more graduates, greater enrolment, and more revenues for the colleges. Their lack of concern for a student struggling to succeed because his professor is swamped with work and because so many other students need his time and attention is perplexing. How can students be successful, if in the course of their studies, it is abundantly clear that many remain uneducated and or inarticulate?
Over the past years college administrations have been even further obsessed with increasing enrolment. The provincial government support through programs such as Superbuild, an initiative of Mike Harris' Conservatives that gave $742 million to post-secondary capital projects to help expand the capacity of Ontario colleges and universities. College administrators went on an unprecedented spending spree. They increased their own salaries by up to 20% during this period. Now they want more, and they want to diminish further academic quality by demanding even more from overworked teachers and librarians.
Indeed, they are attempting to remove any protection we have over reasonable workload limits by trashing our Collective Agreement, and using inexpensive part-time faculty to do full time work. (Part-timers, who do not have job security, are manipulated and taken advantage of because there is no measure of the work that they do - they are simply paid an amount per hour of classroom teaching. Many part-timers teach at more than one college. To assume that they can or will, in such circumstances, make the kind of commitment and contribution needed from college faculty to achieve a quality education for our students is simply naïve.)
Salary demands, while on the table, are not the issue in the strike. The real issue is exactly what we hoped for when Premier McGuinty promised in May of 2005 when he said:
"By quality, we mean more faculty at colleges and universities, to accommodate higher enrolments and help students succeed, more faculty time for students, more students completing their undergraduate programs and going on to grad school and easier movement between colleges and universities."
We agree wholeheartedly with Premier McGuinty. Our position in this strike is fully aligned with his thinking - we want to restore quality to college classrooms.
I urge you to ask the Premier to intervene and bring an end to this unnecessary loss to students.
Posted by: Muriel | March 14, 2006 at 03:05 PM