Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs,
Science and Technology
Subcommittee on Post-Secondary education
Issue 9 - Evidence - Afternoon Sitting
HALIFAX, Tuesday, February 18, 1997
The Subcommittee on Post-Secondary education of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, met this day at 2:15 p.m. to continue its inquiry into the state of Post-Secondary education in Canada.
Senator M. Lorne Bonnell (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, we have with us Mr. Dale Kirby, the official spokesperson and national executive representative of the Canadian Federation of Students, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Ms Lori Lush, a board member of the Central Newfoundland Regional College Student Association.
Mr. Dale Kirby, Official Spokesperson and National Executive Representative, Canadian Federation of Students -- Newfoundland and Labrador: First of all, I would like to mention that the absence of a senator from Newfoundland and Labrador is a little disappointing. It leads me to wonder if there are any senators from this province.
The Canadian Federation of Students, Newfoundland and Labrador, is a representative body of 23 institutions within the province. Among these are 18 college campuses, Memorial University the main campus, the Marine Institute, and Grenville College in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland.
Our written submission focuses mainly on the increasing cost of students taking part in Post-Secondary education in Newfoundland and Labrador, and the withdrawal of student aid in the province. One in two university students takes part in the Canada Student Loan Program. On average, a student will borrow $3,100 per year from the program. This year we have seen a 26 per cent increase in the number of students taking part in the program. Last week, Haywood Harris, a director of student aid in the province, pointed out in the Evening Telegram, that, currently, the Canada Student Loan Program is not meeting the basic needs of students.
In Newfoundland we have a resource-based industry which is slowly losing ground. Now, Post-Secondary education is the only road to the future for the people in our province. However, the cost of PSE in the province is making it unaccessible. In Post-secondary Indicators '95, a government publication, it was pointed out that, although tuition is still low compared to many other parts of the country, the financial burden of students due to the low per-capita income in this province is among the highest in Canada.
This year, and over the last three years, there has been a 45-per-cent increase in tuition at Memorial University. We have suspicions, and I do not believe they are unfounded, that the provincial government in the upcoming budget will add a fourth year to this plan, so we will have in excess of a 45-per-cent increase in university tuition over four years.
College tuition has also increased. We believe that this is a direct consequence of the Canada Health and Social Transfer and, in the next couple of weeks, we will know whether there will be further increases or not. Statistics show that enrolment is declining at Memorial University. We believe that this is a direct result of the increased cost.
Ms Lori Lush, Board Member, Central Newfoundland Regional College Student Association: I would like to give you some background on our provincial college system. Currently, we are undergoing a complete reorganization of our provincial college system, which includes an amalgamation of five separate colleges into one Newfoundland provincial college. As a result, campuses are being closed and some programs are being eliminated. As campuses are being closed, programs are being transferred to other campuses which means we are overcrowding our colleges.
There has been an ongoing lobby by private institutes pressuring government to eliminate duplication of programs. We do not believe that there is a duplication of programs, there cannot possibly be when, comparing a private institute with a public institute, the public institute offers the same program at approximately ten per cent of the cost of a private program.
In direct relation to our closing of campuses, we have The Atlantic Ground Fish Strategy, a federal program that provides for the retraining for our fisherpeople. It has already come to an end at many campuses, and is soon to come to an end across the board. This will result in us losing millions of dollars in training money from our government. One college, for example, will lose $9 million which was pumped into the campus by the federal and provincial governments to run these programs to accommodate these people under TAGS. That will also result in declining enrollments in both our public and private institutes.
Our private institutes are pressuring government and government seems to be listening. They seem to be agreeing with the private institutes in saying that there is a duplication of services and a duplication of programs that they want to eliminate. Unfortunately, the students do not see it as an option. There can be no elimination of a program when you do not have the option to go to the private institute and pay 90 to 100 per cent more.
Mr. Kirby: As an example of that, I heard someone from a private institute ask: If Cabot College in St. John's, Newfoundland were offering a business program and four private institutes in St. John's were offering a business program, why is the public funding a business program at Cabot College or at any other public institute for that matter?That attitude causes us some concern.
In our brief we ask you to recommend the National Student Aid Reform Initiative. The Canada Student Loan Program, and seven national organizations representing faculty, students and administrators of student aid, have come together under this initiative, and we believe that this is a great way to start reforming a system that is definitely in need of reform.
The Chairman: That was brief and to the point. Let me ask you a question about Newfoundland. We know that the ground fisheries is at a standstill and that the development of Hibernia is not at the stage where it can boost the economy. As well, the nickel mines in Labrador are in the process of being developed. If a student underwent specialized training of some sort, where in Newfoundland would he find work?
Mr. Kirby: That is a very good question. Everything seems to be looking to the future. Students completing technical programs at the colleges and those taking part in degrees in geology and the earth sciences and the like, do have some job prospects. However, currently, we do have a brain drain and we are losing our population in large numbers because there is no employment in the province.
The public sector continues to be unraveled, unrolled and cut back, and there is no end in sight. There is a lack of private industry. Voisey Bay and Hibernia are prospective, but whether we will reap the benefits of those in the future, is uncertain.
The Chairman: Although Newfoundland is suffering the ill-effects of this brain drain, is it not quite probable that other regions of Canada may be benefiting from the EDUCATION these people have received in Newfoundland? If that is so, it may be a good reason why the federal government should put more money into EDUCATION in Newfoundland.
Should economic and employment prospects improve in Newfoundland, those who have left may return.
Ms Lush: We would like to see an increase in federal funding. Unfortunately, the provincial government will only pay to postate the child. The adult student must pay for his own Post-Secondary education. Then that person moves away and pays taxes and reaps the benefits of living in another province. When he retires, he may move back home and become another strain on our social programs. We spend provincial money to postate our population, but there is no financial return to the government during the working years of the individual.
Senator Forest: You voiced your concern that there were no senators present from Newfoundland and Labrador. Senators are members of various committees, and this happens to be the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. Their absence certainly does not denote any lack of interest on the part of your senators. In fact, a couple of them told me that they would be very interested to hear what we are doing. We all have our various spheres of work and when our report is presented in the Senate by the chair of our committee then all the senators will have an opportunity to get involved. I just want you to know that there is no lack of interest on the part of senators from Newfoundland, it is just not a committee they are serving on at this time.
On the last page of your brief you recommend that the federal and provincial governments immediately implement a three-year moratorium on any tuition fee increase for all post-secondary institutions. In different ways that recommendation has been put to us, so we are aware of the concern of students in that respect. If you were to propose a second recommendation to the committee, what would that be?
Mr. Kirby: I believe the other recommendation is in the brief. It is to restructure the Canada Student Loans Program.
Senator Forest: Are loans and tuition your main concerns?
Mr. Kirby: Certainly.
Senator Forest: Your main concerns relate to the financial problems students are facing nowadays.
Mr. Kirby: That is the big issue because, like I said, in our province there is nothing to do other than attend a post-secondary institute. There are very few jobs and little opportunity.
Senator Forest: Hopefully, EDUCATION will make it possible for you to contribute to your province's economy and some of these investments will pay off.
Senator Losier-Cool: Newfoundland is beautiful place. Are there any college programs aimed at training people to work in tourism? I know that Europeans would be most interested in visiting this beautiful province.
Ms Lush: Yes, there are several programs geared towards that market. Unfortunately, these programs are offered at private institutes and tuition is very expensive. There is no government subsidization. This makes these institutes relatively inaccessible unless a student is willing to assume an enormous debt load. Most of our young people cannot quite fathom investing $30,000 or $40,000 in an EDUCATION that may assist them to find work. Our current economy does not seem justify that type of expenditure.
Senator DeWare: What do you think of the New Brunswick proposal? I would also like to hear your comments on the merit program.
Ms Lush: One concern raised by our group was that a merit-based system does not always work to the advantage of the student simply because the student may be working to the best of his ability but, because of his socio-economic background he may not be able to aspire to being an A-plus student. That may be easier for someone from a higher social class. Unfortunately, that means that the mediocre student, who is working as hard as he possibly can, may not get the recognition and the financial assistance he deserves.
Senator DeWare: I remember one occasion when a taxi driver was not being very polite about helping my aged mother into a taxi. I said to him that it is very important in this life, when you have a job, to do it to the best of your ability. As you say, we are not all A-plus students, but it is important to do your best.
Ms Lush: We may not all be A-plus students but we are still working to the best of our ability, and that fact should be recognized.
Senator DeWare: I appreciate your comments.
Our committee will consider the question of interest relief. I can understand that an 18-month grace period may not be adequate. You are suggesting a grant would lessen the pain at that certain time when repayment obligations cannot be met.
Where would that grant come from? Would the government make the payment to the bank? Basically the government guarantees the bank a percentage of loans that are in default. Where does this money come from?
Mr. Kirby: The grants are for high-need, first-year students and single parents, and they would be over and above the amount lent by financial institution to the student. This would help to ease the burden.
I would also make a point on the merit program. I am not sure how applicable that would be to a college program. We have an equal number of university and college students in the province, so I am not sure if that will work the same way as it would in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, where we have a large number of universities.
Senator DeWare: It would certainly help high-need students in their first year. The grant would, at least, get them into the system. Once they are in, hopefully their interest is peaked and they stay on.
The Chairman: How has the reorganization of your college systems affected the students of Newfoundland and Labrador?
Ms Lush: Currently, we are in the middle of our reorganization. In September when we started this school year, we were the Central Newfoundland Regional College, and we will finish the year as the Newfoundland Provincial College. The direct effects to the students are not very clear yet. Campuses have been closed down because they did not have adequate enrolment. The programs taught at those campuses have been moved, and other campuses are now overcrowded. I am sure the effects will be obvious in the next year or so.
Mr. Kirby: I do believe that, overall, the reorganization will save the provincial government money. However, accessibility geographically is important. Presently, there is a college in Saint Anthony which is way up in the northern peninsula, and if the people who attend that college could not go to school in Saint Anthony, they would probably not go to school anywhere else. They are mature students.
That is the problem with closures and downsizing. On the one hand we must save money but, on the other hand, some people will not be able to take part in either Post-Secondary education or, in fact, basic adult EDUCATION programs because those programs are also being eliminated. As far as I know, HRDC runs these "open learning centres," as they call them, and they are also eliminating the adult basic EDUCATION instructors jobs. I do not know how long the HRDC program will last. Hopefully, it will last as long as the ABE programs are supposed to last.
The Chairman: You say the government might save money but students will spend more because they must go to St. John's and pay rent and so forth. Consequently, the cost per student will increase.
Mr. Kirby: Yes. Other factors also have to be considered. For example, with the development of the Voisey Bay Smelter in the Placentia area, the cost of living around the Argentia and Placentia area will go up. Landlords will increase their rents and college students in those areas will pay more for rent and living expenses in a small community.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: On page 2 of your brief you deal with provincial goals for Post-Secondary education, specifically EDUCATION and training opportunities for special segments of the population such as women, the employment disadvantaged, the physically and the mentally handicapped and the adult learner. Are resources at the post-secondary level nonexistent for these groups or are there already some in place?
Mr. Kirby: I believe resources are available for these groups, however, they are mainly federal resource. I know there is a Canada Student Loans Program for women wishing to undertake doctoral studies and for part-time students. Physically and mentally handicapped individuals do receive some funding from the provincial government, but I do not believe there are any special provincial funds set aside for women or for the employment disadvantaged adult learners.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: I know that the French-speaking population of Newfoundland is small, and they do have access to elementary and secondary school EDUCATION in French. However, has anything been developed at the post-secondary level for them?
Mr. Kirby: There are programs at the secondary level -- "immersion" programs, as we refer to them. We did have an immersion program whereby university students could go and live in Quebec for three months during the summer and immerse themselves in French culture and language, but that has been eliminated. If you are talking about French-speaking individuals in the province, there are no programs at the post-secondary level.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Do you have French secondary schools?
Mr. Kirby: I believe so, but I think that involves an added cost to the parents.
Senator Losier-Cool: I know there are francophone schools and school boards. For the record, I think it is accurate to say that francophone parents do not pay unless they live in isolated areas.
Mr. Kirby: It is not universal because these francophone institutions are in St. John's. Therefore, if you want your children to attend one of these francophone secondary institutes you must live in that centre in order to take advantage of it.
The Chairman: I believe that, under the constitution, if the population size warrants it in a particular area, then there is entitlement to free French EDUCATION. However, if they do not meet the density of population requirement, it is not provided. I believe the same situation exists in Quebec. If only one or two English-speaking people live in a community in Northern Quebec, no English school is provided.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: The EDUCATION board is funded, and students are transported to an area where an English EDUCATION is provided.
The Chairman: Maybe we should all join Quebec.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: We can joke about it but I think, Mr. Chairman, a certain segment of our report should deal with what is available for French-speaking people across Canada.
The Chairman: I agree. In that regard, we should hear from provincial officials rather than rely on what the students may say, because we do not want to involve students in a constitutional conflict. We will get the official word from the Department of EDUCATION in Newfoundland.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: You said that there are secondary level resources available for the physically or mentally handicapped. Are post-secondary resources available also?
Mr. Kirby: Yes, there are. I believe, that is provided by the Department of Social Services.
The Chairman: Thank you for your presentation.
We now have, from the Nova Scotia League for Equal Opportunities, Mr. Lorne Ryan.
Mr. Lorne Ryan, Executive Director, Nova Scotia League for Equal Opportunities: I have with me Ms Linda Stiles, the chair of the Nova Scotia League for Equal Opportunities. As a disabled consumer she is able to speak from personal experience on these issues. Also with me is Dr. David Leitch who is working at the Atlantic Centre for Disabled Students at Saint Mary's University. We asked him to attend as part of our presentation to you because he has many years of experience in the challenges encountered from an administrative point of view, as well as from a consumer's point of view.
We will be using material which has already been submitted to you. There is one correction I should like to make on page 7, the last page of our original submission to you. We will touch on that point when we reach it, if we might. It is an error in the figures, not in the translation.
We appreciate the opportunity to appear before your committee. We advocate on behalf of people with disabilities. A fact which is frequently overlooked is that only 10.8 per cent of the people in Canada with disabilities have some form of Post-Secondary education. A number of factors could affect this.
In Nova Scotia at least, while teachers are required to take training to deal with students with special needs, there is no ongoing training available to them. Once a teacher has completed basic training, he or she is free to teach, even though there may be students with special needs in the class at the university level. The teacher may not be aware of the needs of those students.
Presently, the Nova Scotia Department of EDUCATION indicates that there are 26,000 students which they classify as being special needs students. Later on Dr. Leitch will give us some indication of just how many of those actually take Post-Secondary education.
We believe all teachers should be required to take more than just one basic course in order to know how a classroom setting might affect a student's ability at all forms and levels of school. A very simple example of what is involved is that at at Dalhousie University, St. Mary's University, Mount Allison University and many others, the book aisles are so close together that it is difficult for a person to move between the aisles. If a student in a wheelchair needs to pick out 50 books, he or she must ask somebody who is not in a wheelchair to go down those aisles, pick out the 50 books, and bring them back.
Students with disabilities also find it difficult to get adequate funding. One reason is that their disability weighs against them when it comes to getting part-time jobs. Another reason is that the difficulty the run into in accessing government programs. For example, the Student With Disabilities Internship Program, which was started in Nova Scotia three years ago, got very good reviews from both participants and supervisors. Last year money was promised for January but it was not delivered until six weeks after everybody else had received their funds. As of noon today, we have received no indication that there will be any funds available for this program again this year, which means that a government program designed to help people with disabilities will either not function again this year or it will be late again this year.
We find it difficult to persuade people to partner with people with disabilities.
The major problem is that there is very little in the way of continuous funding for people with disabilities. There might be program funding for a year, but there is little funding in the future. For example, VRDP, Vocational Rehabilitation for Disabled Persons, was supposed to end last year. It has been extended for another year. There are indications it will be extended a year after this, but what will happen in 1999, 2000 and 2005, we do not know; neither does the government; and neither does anybody else. It is up in the air.
Funding for disabled persons does not include the expense of, say, getting to and from where they live. Let me give you two examples. Students tend to the live in the cheapest housing available, which usually means the oldest housing, which means it was built years ago and is, therefore, not accessible. To find accessible housing you must go to new buildings which mean higher rent. Not only that, but new buildings tend to be built further away from the campuses.
How does a disabled student get from a building in Sackville, which is 15 to 20 kilometres away, to Dalhousie University? There is an Access-a-bus which must be reserved a week in advance. It is run on a first-come-first-served basis. For a population of 355,000 in this area there are three accessible taxis which must be reserved 24 hours in advance. An accessible van costs about $40,000. How does the student get from where he lives to where he studies; and, when he studies, how does he get to the classroom?
We had a little problem getting here today. According to the letter we received, the street address of this building is 6136 University Avenue. This building does not have a street address because it is not on a street. Therefore, we must park a fair distance a way and wheel up to here, and hope there is an accessible entrance.
Many university departments are run out of older homes which the university bought. A five-bedroom house that has been turned into the Department of Philosophy is totally inaccessible to someone in a wheelchair. Until a couple of years ago, the accessible students advisor office was in a building that had five steps up to the front door. It took four years to move that office into the student union building.
Students with disabilities also have to deal with the mundane things in life. Students with severe arthritis have to pay for the batteries for their tape recorders so they can tape all their lectures. With five lectures a day, five days a week, the tapes and batteries can be expensive. They cannot erase the tapes because they form the notes. The student usually has to pay for that.
In many instances families of students cannot help them with finances. We have supplied you with a chart that illustrates that. That chart was taken from the 1991 Health and Limitation Survey by Statistics Canada, so it applies across the country. From that you will see that over 160,000 people with disabilities live on $2,000 a year or less.
At this point I would like to give Dr. Leitch an opportunity to follow up on some of the comments I have made. Then, if you have any questions, we would be happy to answer them.
Mr. David Leitch, Ph.D., Director, Atlantic Centre of Research, Access and Support for Disabled Students, Saint Mary's University: I have provided for you a copy of a study that I did back in 1995. It contains tables and graphs that you can look at at your leisure.
I have been working in this area of increasing accessibility in the area of higher EDUCATION since about 1981. I have learned in that time, and I want to share a few of my observations.
In the past 16 years in this country I have seen a considerable improvement in the degree of accessibility to higher EDUCATION or Post-Secondary educational institutions. Most of my time has been spent in universities, so I cannot really speak authoritatively about community colleges across the country, but there has been an improvement. In 1995, I did a survey of the 47 universities that were used in the Maclean's study to assess the extent of this improvement. I found that, although the situation was improving, there were still some problems. In terms of support, there was and continues to be unevenness across the country.
I have been in buildings that were supposedly accessible. That accessibility was defined by one telephone in the entire building being lowered, meanwhile, there were no accessible washrooms, the elevator was not accessible, there was no braille in use, and so on.
I found that, of the 47 universities used in the Maclean's study -- and I added one which was a royal military college -- there were about 819,926 students enrolled full and part time and less than one per cent of the total enrollment was made up of persons with disabilities. It is still a pretty small number.
You will see from my study that I found a scenario that was quite discouraging in specific areas, physical disabilities particularly. For instance, every student categorized as being blind or visually impaired amounted to only .08 per cent of the total 819,000-plus students enrolled at Canadian universities; the figure for deaf and hearing impaired was .06 per cent of the population; and for students with moderate to severe mobility impairments, the figure was only .17 per cent. If you rely on the Stats Canada figures, when you consider that about 14 to 20 per cent of the population has disabilities, depending on the province that you are in -- and in Nova Scotia I believe it is just over 20 per cent -- it really does give you a sense of what is happening in the country.
In my view there are still very persistent obstacles. As suggested by Lorne, there is an unevenness of support programs in the sense that there is a lack of confidence about their continuance. A particular support program which is funded one year may not be funded the next year.
The Atlantic Centre for Disabled Students is funded by the federal government, but almost every year since 1985 we have had to worry about whether the funds will be available the following year. Meanwhile, over 100 students with moderate to severe disabilities are counting on that service being there. These are students who are blind and/or deaf, and/or mobility impaired, and so on.
In the early years of the centre, I was very encouraged by the involvement of the federal government. When left to the provinces, accessibility is defined in all kinds of ways that typically exclude persons with disabilities. At the forum on Post-Secondary education in 1987 in Saskatoon accessibility was almost a forgotten aspect of that conference. It has slipped since then.
I think all institutions can do more. Post-Secondary educational institutions themselves can look at stronger policies to ensure that persons with disabilities are included as members of their boards of trustees and faculties.
To conclude, there have been tremendous gains and I just hope that we will continue to build on those gains.
Senator Forest: Your presentation is actually the first one we have heard on physical disabilities. I spent a number of years on Albert's human rights commission which did a lot of work in this regard. I would agree with you that important changes have been made in legislation. However, governments, institutions and private businesses, are slow to adapt.
Attitudinal change is also very important. Years ago it was quite unusual to have a severely handicapped student graduate from university. I remember the first time, as chancellor, having a blind student convocate. That student got a standing ovation because it was so unusual.
Do you believe that there has been a growing acceptance and appreciation by administrators and fellow students for students with disabilities?
Mr. Leitch: It is an interesting question and I know it comes from someone who has been involved in this area. I believe there has been a profound attitudinal change for the better. With approximately 7 000 persons with moderate to severe disabilities in the Canadian Post-Secondary educational system, there is an impact on the system. Their peers are really compelled to deal with that reality, and many, in fact, are very helpful and supportive of them. No amount of dollars could provide the total support, so you have students that are carrying books for other students and, across the country, thousands of students are volunteer readers for persons who are visually impaired. There are also volunteer tutors. There are also tens of thousands of volunteer note-takers in classrooms in Post-Secondary educational institutions across the country. Change is happening, but it is slow, like most attitudinal changes. However, it is definitely happening, and that is positive.
To give credit where credit is due, universities are becoming increasingly conscious, faculty and administrators, of the need to make changes. When I began back in 1981 or 1982, when some faculty members were faced with having a sign language interpreter at the front of the class for a deaf student, they were very upset and disheveled by it. Now at just about any major university any faculty member would agree that that is an acceptable kind of support and arrangement to have in the classroom.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Can you remember which page of your brief dealt with the federal government not being forthcoming with funds?
Mr. Ryan: Are you talking about the Students With Disabilities Internship Program?
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Yes.
Mr. Ryan: Yes. That was a problem we encountered last year, and it seems to be occurring again this year. That is mentioned at page 3 of our brief.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Should this be a responsibility of the federal government? Should it not be a responsibility of the provinces to ensure that services are available?
Mr. Ryan: This program was developed by the federal government as a internship program and, as part of that, they would be hiring students. It was very similar to two other programs, the native internship program and the Black internship program.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: I was not aware of them.
Mr. Ryan: Nova Scotia is the only province in which all three exist. This was part of the affirmative action policy and, again, this reflects the changes in attitude which occurred. When this started three years ago, money was available for affirmative action because the government wished to get people with disabilities back into the workforce and, of course, one of the most difficult things to do is get a reference so you can get a job. You cannot get a job until you get a reference; but you cannot get a reference until you get a job.
This type of program was intended to help people with disabilities do that by giving them a chance to work at a federal government office, the Canada Employment Centre Office. It now goes through Heritage Canada, Human Resources Development Canada. The point is that the program was developed by the federal government to help people with disabilities find employment and we would like to see them continue that. However, there is an attitude problem with regard to people with disabilities. We have three programs. The other two had no problems with funding last year, but the program for people with disabilities did run into problems.
I am not trying to put the other groups down, but people with disabilities are by far the largest of the three equity groups because they include aboriginals and people from the black community. In Nova Scotia, 21.3 per cent of our population is disabled. Eighteen per cent are of working age. One out of every five people in Nova Scotia one has some form of disability.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Do you consider being Black and being aboriginal a disability?
Mr. Ryan: What I am saying is that those populations include people with disabilities.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Are you only talking about people with physical or mental disabilities?
Mr. Ryan: I am talking about all kinds of disabilities. Many disabilities are what we classify as invisible. You can distinguish a person in a wheelchair very easily, you can distinguish a person with mobility disabilities fairly easily, but there are many invisible disabilities.
Senator DeWare: Like ADHD, for instance?
Mr. Ryan: Yes, that is one. Environmental illness is another, and Tourette's syndrome is yet another. People also have learning disabilities. I could spend hours listing them, but we do not want to do that. You have books you can refer to and people you can check that with so I will not take your time. My point is this: The visible minority population in Nova Scotia makes up about 5.5 per cent of the population and there are disabled persons among them. I am not including the aboriginals who make up 1.9 per cent of the population. Both of those groups have internship programs sponsored by the federal government. Their funding level is $150,000. The disability group, which represents 18 per cent of the population of working age, gets $80,000. What does that say about the attitude towards people with disabilities? This is not a pilot project. It has been tested, and found successful by the participants and by the supervisors. In fact, it has been so successful that they want to introduce it in B.C. However, it is now February, and, yet again, I do not know whether there are funds available for this program this year.
I am on another committee for which funds were available last year. Those funds have been cut.
We would like to get people with disabilities off welfare and into the workforce. There are many barriers to that. You can find a detailed report on that in Andy Scott's report on the federal task force. Again, that is available for you to read.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Is the Nova Scotia League for Equal Opportunities a non-governmental agency?
Mr. Ryan: We are a not-for-profit organization, we advocate on behalf of people with disabilities. We are not government employees. We do receive funding from both the federal and provincial governments. Does that answer your question?
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Yes. We will not be making recommendations specific to Nova Scotia.
Mr. Ryan: I appreciate that.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Do you have any comments about Post-Secondary education in Canada generally?
Mr. Ryan: I have been treating this as a matter that affects the whole of Canada. I raised the point of student with disabilities, because that funding was initially approved in January of last year by Ottawa. There was a change of staff in Ottawa and, once that happened, suddenly the funding for students with disabilities was in question, even though it had been in existence for three years.
1994 was an age of miracles. In 1994, Revenue Canada redefined what it meant to be disabled. I think the figure was 40,000 people across Canada were reassessed, and 13,000 people suddenly and miraculously were no longer classified as being disabled.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: They were cured by some miracle.
Mr. Ryan: Yes. A couple of the questions asked of the doctors in the reassessment were: Can this person feed himself; and can this person dress himself? I do not know of any employer who, if you walk in and say I can feed myself and I can dress myself, will pay you a salary.
We need the federal government to intervene so that there are consistent regulations across the country that apply to every province. A student from Alberta may want to attend one of our excellent schools of journalism in Nova Scotia. That student should be able to get the same level of service and the same sources of funding in Nova Scotia as I would if I went to study in Alberta. However, that is not true. That is why federal government involvement.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: During your long-term general observation of post-secondary institutions have you noticed better programs in one province as opposed to another for the disabled? Is there consistency across the country?
Ms Linda Stiles, Chair, Nova Scotia League for Equal Opportunities: I believe B.C. is one of the best equipped places for a disabled person to live. If we could all move from Nova Scotia out to B.C. it would solve a lot of problems. Technical aids would be supplied for us, and we would not need to worry about accessibility to buildings. This afternoon I was stranded outside for 15 minutes because I was given incorrect information.
Senator DeWare: That also happened to committee members.
Ms Stiles: I am glad I am not alone.
With the technical aids they have in B.C., it is one of the best equipped places for anyone with a physical disability or any type of disability. There is no such equipment in the part of Nova Scotia I am from. We have a community college but we have no transportation facilities to get there. I have a power wheelchair which can go some distance, but it will not go 30 miles.
Mr. Leitch: I am not in total agreement with the remarks just made by Linda but, again, I am basing my view on more than a decade of making observations in different parts of Canada at the post-secondary level. At best you can only say that it is uneven. There is tremendous support and there are tremendous people in post-secondary systems in Quebec. In Alberta there also have been tremendous gains. The Government of Ontario has also provided millions of dollars in technical support and support at the post-secondary level to colleges and universities.
There have been gains but it is uneven. For instance, British Columbia has made gains in one area, but there is a huge lawsuit pending in British Columbia by a deaf student who had to struggle to get interpreting services. Interpreting services are provided and made available at post-secondary institutions in Ontario and in Quebec. It does vary from province to province.
I have heard from students who were trying to register in sociology courses and the sociology department was located in part of a building where there was no elevator. There are different stories about different universities across the country. It is very uneven.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Can you recommend a model that this committee should consider? In which country do think the facilities are the best?
Mr. Leitch: I have spend a year in the American system. I believe that anyone who has considered that system must be impressed by the American With Disabilities Act and the impact that legislation has had on all institutions and, particularly, on Post-Secondary educational institutions in the United States. I believe many people are considering using the U.S. as a model.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: When was the legislation passed?
Mr. Ryan: Within the last five years.
Mr. Leitch: I believe it was in 1992.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Since I worked with the handicapped I was aware of some of the positive steps that were being taken in the States. For instance, 25 or 30 years ago they had facilities for deaf and autistic children, but the admittance fees to those institutions were very high. Is that still the case?
Mr. Leitch: That is still so. For instance, in 1980, many provinces were paying $10,000-plus to send deaf graduates of high school to Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. There are still many examples of persons who are paying huge sums of money to attend American institutions to receive the EDUCATION they need.
Senator DeWare: According to the number of students registered, Saint Mary's has the largest number of disabled students. Do they have a special program? Is that something to do with you, sir?
Mr. Leitch: In part it is due to the federal government which created three centres of specialization in 1985 to promote and encourage accessibility within higher EDUCATION. One was at the University of Alberta, one was at the University of Western Ontario and the other was the Atlantic Centre for Disabled Students at Saint Mary's University. In the 1970s Saint Mary's University built 21 accessible units in the residence which, I think, was quite a daring move and futuristic thinking on their part. Also, in the mid-1970s they created a tape library for the blind that serviced all visually impaired persons at the post-secondary level throughout the maritimes. The university has made a commitment to provide support in that area.
Senator DeWare: Our new international information highways and our computer systems would create openings for disabled students. Community colleges in New Brunswick did make some of those courses accessible at one time. I remember we put up cots for some students them because after six or seven hours some of them needed to lie down for a while. That was a very popular program.
There is a Ronald McDonald House in Moncton for disabled students. If students are attending the University of Moncton they make arrangements for them to stay there and they make transportation available as well. Of course, that is only available to a small percentage of disabled students.
Do you think we should seriously consider offering training and upgrading courses to students so they can work in computer systems and on the new Internet Highway?
Mr. Leitch: Very much so. Many of our students that at Saint Mary's have computer skills and much of their time and energy is devoted to getting training in that area because they recognize that their chances of being integrated into the economic fabric of this country will be dependent on that more so than perhaps other students. You are absolutely correct, they are very conscious of it, and desperately seeking training and EDUCATION in those areas.
Senator Losier-Cool: On the question of physical accessibility, do many campuses have access between buildings for the disabled? In Ottawa one of the universities has a tunnel which connects buildings. Are there any such facilities in Atlantic Canada?
Mr. Ryan: The only place that I know of is the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton where they are use the heating tunnels to connect buildings. David can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that is the only campus in the Atlantic region that has something like that. To build connections in Nova Scotia, which is very hilly, you would have to excavate a lot of bedrock, so it would be extremely expensive. In Prince Edward Island the land is flat and there is no need to do that. However, as far as I know the answer to that is no, there are no such facilities.
Mr. Leitch: As universities put resources into development and so on, they respect the lessons that have been learned from universities that have made their buildings accessible. You will find many campuses now, including the Dalhousie campus, that have walkways between buildings that allow students to stay indoors and to get from one building to the other in chairs. You can move from the arts and administration building to the chemistry department and to their Killam Library in tunnels in a wheelchair. Saint Mary's has also spent vast sums of money connecting their buildings, not with tunnels but with ped-ways, above-ground walkways, that make the buildings accessible.
Senator Losier-Cool: On the subject of schools for training teachers, does the school in Amherst still exist?
Ms Stiles: No. The government closed that building and they are planning on ripping it down. I am from Amherst. That is a bad situation.
Senator Losier-Cool: When I was taught in New Brunswick I knew of some teachers who went there to train to teach sign language.
Mr. Ryan: That has now been combined with the School For the Blind in Halifax, and that may present problems in itself as I am not sure, for example, what will be done about the fire alarms. The deaf cannot hear the bell and the blind cannot see the flashing lights.
Senator Losier-Cool: Where do francophone teachers go to get that training? They used to go to Amherst.
Ms Stiles: They used to go to Amherst, now I do not know where they go.
Mr. Ryan: They may go to Truro where there is a teachers' training facility. I think that and Acadia University are the only schools for teachers in Nova Scotia.
Senator Perrault: You state in your brief that the total enrollment, PWD, makes up less than one per cent of the population of Canadian students. You say that the situation for students with severe physical disabilities is even more bleak. The participation of all visually impaired or blind students was .08 per cent.
Yet, great progress is being made in assisting these people. I wonder how much of that aid is being delivered to them. A friend of mine had a sight disability caused by diabetes. I made some calls on his behalf, and now he is able to read almost any document on a monitor in which displays big letters. I also understand that IBM now has software which will enable one to dictate a letter and it will be typed automatically. After the letter is typed, if you want it read back to you, it will automatically read it back to you in an electronic voice. I have that program on my own computer.
Are we providing any of these modern technological aids to the disadvantaged? It seems to me that providing that kind of technology should be a priority. It could result in an increase in the number of students registering for Post-Secondary education training. If they had the basic tools to have a document typed and be able to hear the words in the document would that not open new doors for them?
Ms Stiles: You must realize that most people with disabilities live on low incomes. Technical aids are not supplied for disabled people.
Senator Perrault: Perhaps this is a weakness in the program. That is not fair to the disadvantaged.
Ms Stiles: We have been lobbying government in that regard for the last ten years.
Senator Perrault: Are you not getting the kind of response you want or expect?
Ms Stiles: No.
Senator Perrault: Have the Special Opportunity Grants under the Canada Student Loans Program helped many students with disabilities?
Mr. Leitch: Again, the question is a really good one. I think technology does make a difference. Your question provides me an opportunity to add one illustration to the material. Every single one of the approximately 7,000 students in higher EDUCATION in Canada with moderate to severe disabilities is an incredible person. The majority of these people will tell you that, all through school, they were told they could not do it, but they persisted. Many of these persons, in addition to their physical disability, have spent all kinds of time in hospitals. In fact, many are the equivalent of a Canadian Helen Keller. They are tremendous people.
Technology does make a difference, particularly as it is available in larger urban areas and larger universities. One positive aspect is that Canadian corporations do understand that technology allows those individuals to participate in the labour force or in any other sphere and they are, in some cases, providing that technology, or providing the funding for that technology, within universities.
In rural areas, many persons with disabilities in the secondary school system have no idea that this technology is available. Unless they have a very devoted parent or other relative who can provide that technology, they will miss out on this opportunity.
Senator Perrault: These new technological devices, these technological breakthroughs, should be available at any institution of higher learning.
Are there any provincial funding programs for students with disabilities?
Mr. Leitch: The other part of your question related to Special Opportunity Grants. There is unevenness in those grants too, because, in Nova Scotia the SOGs are up to $3,000 and in other parts of Canada they are higher. That represents only a fraction of the cost of some of the new technology. Some of the reading technology that you have been describing costs $8,000, $10,000 or $20,000, so $3,000 is not enough.
The infrastructure of support for that technology is not in place. We must remember that students have choices. They could use that $3,000 for tutoring. Then there would be no money available for technology at all, or vice versa.
Senator Perrault: We are not providing enough money. We can provide computer labs for universities from coast to coast and assist them with those costs but to ignore the needs of the people with disabilities seems entirely wrong. I attended a convention of the people with disabilities in Vancouver a few months ago and, I agree with you, I have never seen such spark and such determination in my life. One chap, who had suffered the effects of thalidomide, said, "You people must understand, although my life may not look very attractive to some of you, it is my life and I have hopes and dreams and I want to get EDUCATION." It was enough to bring tears into your eyes. He gave a very inspirational talk. He told every politician in the place precisely what the score was.
Mr. Ryan: I did mention a program of vocational rehabilitation for disabled persons. That did help with secondary EDUCATION and Post-Secondary education. Up until a couple of years ago you could get technical aid while you were taking the training but, when you were through, you were required to return the device for someone else to use. I think that may have changed in the last year or two.
Senator Perrault: It should be changed. That is not a fair way to treat an important sector of our population. They are simplifying some of these devices and the price is dropping dramatically.
Mr. Ryan: Interestingly enough, when you get the new Windows 95 program, part of the program is accessibility options so you can change the way the keys work and so on on your computer.
Ms Stiles: Everything can be changed and you can supply everything that you want for people with disabilities but you must make sure there is access to schools. I went through the school system and there was nothing for me. I was required to go up four flights of steps to go to one classroom, and go back down four flights to get to another one. Where I live, which is in Amherst, nothing has changed. We were asked to go to the school to talk to students about disabilities and it was decided that our discussions would be held in the theatre where plays are put on. It is a new section of the school. We had to be carried over two steps in order to get in, but that was classified as accessible.
Senator Perrault: You had some kind words about British Columbia. I think we have improved. We have a long way to go but all of the sidewalks are now wheelchair accessible. We are winning a few battles.
Ms Stiles: I realize it takes a long time to make changes, and to enforce the changes, but we are no different from anybody else and disabled people deserve the same rights as each and every individual here. We should be able to access every building in a wheelchair and every blind person should have access to technology which will help them take notes.
Senator Perrault: About two weeks ago I read in the press that a spectacular new hearing aid has been developed. It is probably very costly, those items always are. That seemed to offer some encouragement to those with a hearing problem. Perhaps with new technology, with some government generosity, and the cooperation of the private sector, we can do something to assist all of you.
Mr. Ryan: We nearly lost our funding last year thanks to government cut-backs.
Senator Perrault: What rationale was advanced?
Mr. Ryan: This was part of Mr. Martin's budget. There was to be a 30-per-cent cutback in the core funding to all the advocacy groups on the grounds that we were special interest groups and we should be able to get our support from people with disabilities.
Senator Perrault: You do not fit into that category by any means.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Most are probably not working.
Mr. Ryan: For people on social assistance in Nova Scotia, it is a luxury to own a telephone. It is not easy to call your politician and say "What the hell are you planning to do with me now?"
The Chairman: Write a letter.
Mr. Ryan: You have to find an accessible post box.
The Chairman: Thank you for your most interesting presentation.
Our next witnesses are from the College Systems in Atlantic Canada. Perhaps, gentlemen, each one of you could take five minutes to tell us what you want us to know and then be prepared to answer questions.
Mr. Jack Buckley, President, Nova Scotia Community College: Mr. Chairman, Nova Scotia Community College is the only anglophone community college in Nova Scotia. It serves Nova Scotians through 14 campuses stretching from Sydney to Yarmouth. It enrols approximately 7,000 full-time students annually, and upwards of 10,000 part-time students.
The Nova Scotia Community College is a post-secondary institution that offers programming at the certificate and diploma level. It does not offer degrees. The majority of our programs are one or two years in length, after high school completion. We train in 130 different occupational areas and our mandate is pre-employment training. Our response is to meet the labour market needs of the province and to provide customized training activities for servicing business and industry in the province. We also undertake the task of retraining the unemployed and the continuing training of employed workers.
I believe we are facing some serious national problems and I would like to address a couple of them at this time.
The need for a trained workforce is being recognized more and more nationally, and though I would espouse the importance of our universities, nevertheless, the prime function of the university is not to prepare entry-level workers. That is not their mandate and I would suggest neither should it be. However, the role of the community college in the EDUCATION and training sector of higher EDUCATION in Canada is underutilized, is underfunded, and is not recognized in its proper role of labour market training. That is of national concern to employers and it is certainly of concern to those seeking entry into the workforce.
In Nova Scotia we have a particular problem. We have a wonderful university system with 12 degree-granting institutions for a population of just under one million people. We have a long, and I believe envied, history of contributing to university EDUCATION in Canada. We have some nationally and internationally recognized universities and university programs here. However, we have approximately four times the national average of 19 to 24 year olds participating in university EDUCATION and approximately one-third the national average of 19 to 24 year olds participating in community college training programs. That imbalance is to the detriment of Nova Scotians seeking entry-level employment and it must be addressed.
The final point that I would raise is the issue of the internationalization of our post-secondary institutions in Canada. I, in another role, serve as the chair of the board of directors of the national organization which will be appearing before you later, the Canadian Bureau for International EDUCATION. That organization represents the universities and colleges of Canada in their international commitment and activity.
The role of Post-Secondary education in internationalizing our curriculum, in attracting international students, and in fostering Canadians studying abroad has only recently being recognized. The economic impact of attracting foreign students on Canadian Society is still not properly recognized. In Nova Scotia, particularly, we perceive international students as a drain on our economy. Statistics simply do not bear that out.
Finally, it is the contact that our own students have in living with, in studying with, and in recreating with students from other countries that enriches their own lives. These are often life-long contacts. We talk so much about the globalization of trade, our international partners in trade and how dependent we are as a trading nation, yet, we have one of the lowest participation rates of the industrialized countries in the world when it comes to offering our students an international study experience as a part of their training.
I will pass the floor to the next speaker.
The Chairman: Please proceed.
[Translation]
Mr. Réal Samson, President, Collège de l'Acadie: My name is Réal Samson and I am the president of the Collège de l'Acadie.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: We are happy to have you here, Mr. Samson.
Mr. Samson: Thank you very much. I am here today not necessarily to discuss the fate of the community college system in Canada, but rather to talk about the fate of the Acadians of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. My colleague Bernard Paulin will talk about New Brunswick's Acadian community later on. Therefore, I will not get into that area.
The Collège de l'Acadie was founded in 1992 pursuant to a federal-provincial agreement. I want to emphasize right away the important role that the federal government plays in Post-Secondary education at the college level. This very important role must not be diminished in any way. The college brings together seven francophone communities in two provinces: six from Nova Scotia and one from Prince Edward Island. It relies on such technological innovations as videoconferencing, audiographic systems, the Internet, fax machines, telephones and so forth. These innovations have helped us not only to launch our operations, but also to offer a quality EDUCATION to Acadians and francophones. We do this because we have succeeded in achieving our program objectives. Furthermore, because of this technology, we can teach our communities how to function in the new economy. This expanding new economy is computer and communications driven. The college has made major strides since its inception to the point where 13 programs are now offered. We do not yet have the capability of offering the 130 programs that our anglophone counterparts offer, but 13 is nevertheless a good start. Furthermore, these programs are on the cutting edge.
We have also forged partnerships with New Brunswick. We currently offer a course in computer-supported work in partnership with New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Our community in Nova Scotia is succeeding very well. We want to continue supporting these partnerships so as not to have to reinvent the wheel or waste valuable resources. We want to maximize the resources that are available to us. If you look at the map, you will note the small communities in which small college campuses are located. However, because of their size, they have had an amazing impact. For the first time in their history, the francophones of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island are communicating and doing business with one another on a daily basis. They plan, study and do many things together. This is an achievement of historical proportions for our communities. In the past, we were very isolated as our communities are located some distance apart from one another.
To give you an example, La Butte and Saint-Joseph-du-Moine are separated by a distance of 900 kilometres. That is a remarkable distance. We are talking about a community of approximately 40,000 in Nova Scotia and of 5,000 in Prince Edward Island. We face a number of formidable challenges when it comes to administering an institution and providing distance EDUCATION. We have identified four such challenges which we would like to highlight for you at this time.
I would like to end with a recommendation, if I do not go over the five minutes allotted to me. The chairman will certainly advise me if this is in danger of occurring. The first challenge we face is the distance that separates our communities, as I mentioned, and the size of the Acadian community. When it comes to offering a program, it is very difficult to find 10, 15 or 30 people in one region who are interested in enrolling in the same program. Technology has enabled us to some extent to overcome this obstacle and to offer a range of programs to small groups of people.
The second challenge we face is technology. While technology is very efficient, it can also be costly and it must also be managed. Highly qualified people are needed to ensure that we provide quality EDUCATION because we do not want to offer second-class programs to our community. I am not in Nova Scotia to provide a second-class EDUCATION to students. If it were impossible for us to provide a quality EDUCATION without placing members of our community at a disadvantage, I would rather the programs be offered in English. Thus far, however, we are confident that we can maintain this quality and even surpass it with the technological advantage that we offer to our community.
The French language and human resources are also very important factors. We are talking about a community that has never had access to EDUCATION in French. The first schools appeared on the scene only 16 years ago in 1982. Remember, we are not talking about a new community, but one that has existed for over 350 years, a community that has always been denied access to EDUCATION in French. Not that it has not always wanted such access, but because of its size, requests always fell on deaf ears. In the interim, our numbers have dwindled from 80,000 to 40,000. Assimilation has left its mark and today, we are trying to halt the decline. We believe that we can succeed with these institutions.
In terms of our adult population, we have a lot of catching up to do. We need to perfect our language skills. Often, this means going outside the community to find the human resources and this is difficult to do. It is hard to get a Quebecer to settle in rural regions. Even New Brunswickers have trouble coping with the distances involved. They feel comfortable at home where they work and they are not necessarily interested in settling in La Butte. However, we need the resources and we welcome these people with open arms. They enrich our culture and they enrich the members of our community. Nevertheless, attracting them to our community continues to be a very difficult task.
We would like to see a plan developed for a program which would enable us to train our local population to take up the reigns and fill the teaching positions, administer our institutions and so forth.
Finally, there is the matter of programming. Our programming is rather limited, but it is expanding and we want it to continue to expand. We want to offer our community the very best. I am a proud Canadian as well as a proud Nova Scotian.
I want to raise my children in a francophone environment and that is what is happening. My children were able to attend school in French up until the twelfth grade and I have a daughter in university. I am very happy that this was possible and I would like the situation to continue.
I am here today to ask you to support our demands and to help us ensure that our comprehensive system remains in place and that we have an equal opportunity of landing the jobs created by the new economy. I will close out my presentation with a recommendation. However, I will first go through our "whereas" list because I believe it forms the basis of our recommendation.
On page 9, "whereas" appears a number of times. If I am incorrect in my assumptions, my recommendation will not go far. However, if I am right, perhaps some follow-up action will be taken. Whereas the challenges listed in this document require the investment of substantial sums of money for the development and survival both of the college and of French language training in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island; whereas French language post-secondary training outside Quebec is necessary to ensure economic development through the training of a local, qualified and skilled labour force; whereas the federal government has a major role to play in the preservation, promotion and growth of the French language in Canada; whereas the government has a key role to play in helping communities take charge of their own affairs; we recommend that the federal government maintain its commitment toward francophone minorities and continue to work with Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island to ensure that Acadians and francophones have access to quality training programs in French.
[English]
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
Mr. Ron Sparkes, President, Provincial College of Newfoundland and Labrador: Our province is presently in the process of consolidating from five colleges to one, and we anticipate having that substantially completed by the end of March of this year.
The provincial college serves some 7,000 full-time students through 19 campuses on the Island of Newfoundland, and on the mainland of the province in Labrador. In addition, we have 30 community-based learning centres, on average, operating at any one time. Our number of part-time students is in the order of 15,000.
The range of programming offered in the college runs from literacy, adult upgrading, through trades, vocational EDUCATION, technology and university transfer. We also work closely with the aboriginal peoples and the francophone community in Newfoundland, the Port au Port Peninsula, and in Labrador West.
In the past few years, the fishery disaster has led to some extremely difficult times for Newfoundland and Labrador. It has been a struggle. A great many adjustment programs have been offered through the public and private colleges in the province. While we have had very troubled times on that front, we look to the future with optimism with respect to oil, possibilities in information technology, and the emerging mining industry with the nickel and iron ore that has been so much the backbone of the economy in the province, as well as pulp and paper.
It must be asked as to why Canada is the only G-7 country without a national office of EDUCATION and training. We are here today talking about a national role in EDUCATION, yet, our country has no formal mechanism for steering that. While we know and understand that EDUCATION and training is a provincial jurisdiction, I think we can all recognize that there is the potential for much value to be added to our EDUCATIONal endeavour through national co-ordination.
We have been reluctant to talk about that because of jurisdictional issues. To paraphrase Barbara Frum in an interview I saw, she said to the person, "Sir, I think we need to talk about what we are really talking about." We must stop skating around the issue. Mr. Buckley made reference to globalization. This is not the time to be overly provincial in our thinking. The world is our stage in terms of EDUCATION and training. We have the opportunity here -- and I do not wish to diminish the role of the province -- to add value to our endeavour through a national office of some sort.
Post-Secondary education is an investment in this country's future, notwithstanding provincial constitutional issues and responsibilities. For the past number of years, the federal government has played a very constructive and positive role in EDUCATION and training, but that is changing. We feel this change in our institutions and we see it in the lives of the students who come to us. I think it can be argued that the federal role has improved.
Post-Secondary education in this country is among the most important of public policy issues for Canadians, not unlike health care. We guard our health care system. We protect it. Whenever people talk about moving towards managed health care such as we see in the United States, we put the brakes on. That does not happen with respect to Post-Secondary education. We are rushing headlong towards a system of Post-Secondary education in this country close to that of the United States in health care. There are parallels that we can draw.
I know you have heard from student associations about access and affordability. In the province of Newfoundland and Labrador roughly 6,000 young people graduate from high school every year. On the average, 2,000 of those people do not attend any form of Post-Secondary education. We have tracked this through studies in our department. Much of the concern relates to preparation. Much of it relates to affordability and being able to get into post-secondary institutions.
Mr. Buckley mentioned the good work universities are doing, and the very substantial resources that are directed to universities. If you take stock and compare, you will see that we are not giving the attention to the public college system, the broad public college system, that we should. We have a very high rate of participation at the university level in this country. It is very low in post-secondary. We graduate many more engineers and certain kinds of professionals than are needed for the economy. Yet, the number of technicians and technologists is down. I am told that, in terms of engineering, a functioning economy needs three to four technologists for every engineer. We have it the other way around, and that is because we have our priorities in the wrong order with respect to college and university EDUCATION.
Costs are continually going up, and our reaction to that has been to increase tuition. Last Friday evening I met with a group of mayors of the combined councils on the Burin Peninsula. They were talking about the need to hold tuition fees down, because they told us that many people in their communities are spending their retirement nest egg on their children and their grandchildren to help them through university and college. Student debt loads are excessive.
It seems to me that we are now at the stage in this country where we are asking our students of today to pay for our EDUCATION, for those who have come before them, as well as for their own. We are also asking them to look after their children. I am not sure this is really the Canadian way.
The other area that I would like to comment on is that of affordability and access. It is my opinion that the Canadians who now are in most need of Post-Secondary education at the entry level and upgrading are those who have the least opportunity and access. Over the past few years, Human Resources Development Canada has changed its program substantially. Presently, unless you qualify for employment insurance, or one of the adjustment programs like the Atlantic Ground Fish Strategy in Newfoundland and Labrador, you have no means of support for Post-Secondary education. How in heaven's name are people who require high-school level skills and do not have them going to get help to get into the skills training they need?
I would also like to touch on the whole area of the privatization of Post-Secondary education in this country. In recent years there has been a proliferation of private training institutions which has injected competition into the system. It has been a wake-up call to public colleges and many things have happened. It seems to me that Canadians have generally been embracing that change. We do not embrace competition for health care, except when it comes to the care of the elderly. I believe we must consider what is happening here as a matter of public policy.
Clearly, the privatization of Post-Secondary education is establishing a kind of tiered structure in terms of affordability for EDUCATION and training in the country.
I talked a little bit about the need for more portable learning and the need for greater articulation in transfer agreements from our colleges to universities. Pressure must be brought to bear on those who govern to expedite those issues. The academics at the university level and the college faculties have been working on these issues for a number of years and we have made some progress. Articulation agreements are in place, but at a tremendous cost to the taxpayer both in terms of dollars and EDUCATION.
The development of those who work in Post-Secondary education is another critical issue. We have a greying, balding and bulging workforce in our post-secondary instructors who have little opportunity to retrain or remain current. As technology changes, it is critical that we have instructors who can keep pace with that change.
I want to touch briefly on the responsibility of business to contribute to Post-Secondary education. However, I do not want to leave the impression that I think input and money are the all-important things because, as educators, we must focus on the quality of our output as well. Some believe that business can be doing more in view of the profit margins that we are seeing in some sectors of our economy. They believe that the responsibility for post-secondary EDUCATION and training could be spread more among the sectors that are benefiting the most.
I would conclude by saying that we realize that there are certain fiscal realities that we have to come to terms with in this country, and that we must be make strategic investments in human resource development. I challenge this committee to look closely at the diversity of Post-Secondary education across this country, and examine the need for better co-ordination with a national strategy for Post-Secondary education and training. Thank you
[Translation]
Mr. Bernard Paulin, Assistant Deputy Minister, EDUCATIONal Services, New Brunswick Community College: My name is Bernard Paulin and I am in charge of New Brunswick's network of francophone and anglophone community colleges. I will be making a bilingual presentation. A total of 16,000 students are enrolled on a full- time basis in New Brunswick's community colleges. Our network consists of six anglophone and four francophone colleges. I will be giving you a brief overview of this network, and then I will highlight a concern that we have in New Brunswick.
[English]
The New Brunswick community college system has been a real success story. Thousands of New Brunswickers are in the workforce today because of our colleges. A thousand more have been provided a second chance at a better life for being provided an opportunity to complete a high school EDUCATION.
This success is also due to the fact that we have adapted to the changing times. I believe that New Brunswick's experience is unique.
[Translation]
We offer services in both official languages. The fact that we are the only officially bilingual province in Canada poses a true challenge for the colleges and for the department. Every effort is made to ensure that equal services are provided. Colleges operate in either of the two official languages. However, a single administrative structure oversees both anglophone and francophone community colleges.
[English]
One of the biggest challenges in providing equity of service to the French-speaking community is funding the cost of program development. There is very limited learning material for francophones due, in large part, to the small North American market.
The development of learning material and quality has and will require considerable additional investment on the part of the province. The federal government will need to continue its involvement in this area. Federal funding is vital if we are to well serve the francophone minority in New Brunswick. This is a fact, and I share the concern of my colleague at College de l'Acadie. It is more expensive to develop francophone material for teaching.
[Translation]
Since April 1, we have been functioning as a special operating agency, or SOA, that is at arm's length from the government, although we are mindful of its priorities. The New Brunswick Community College is responsible for generating revenues, either through tuition fees or by providing training which can bring in additional revenues that can then be used to provide new programs. However, given the rather fierce competition at the post-secondary level, we feel that we should be focussing our attention more on centres of excellence.
At present, we operate three centres of excellence: a multimedia centre in Miramichi, one specializing in the hotel and restaurant industry and one specializing in woodworking. We use the latest technologies and demand high standards of the students enrolled in these programs. To date, virtually 100 per cent of those who graduate from these programs find employment.
I make another point in my brief which I would simply like to summarize; as you know, New Brunswick was perhaps the first province to have a minister responsible for the information highway. This is a selling point for us and a development tool that we use a great deal. We operate 38 remote training sites in 100 communities. Increasingly, we deliver programs through distance EDUCATION. However, we are heading toward what is known as the virtual campus or virtual college. Beginning in September, we also plan to offer an office technology program in French which is available only on the World Wide Web or Internet. Of course, the multimedia programs offered at the Miramichi Centre will of course also be available in English.
We believe that this approach will ensure our survival. However, forging partnerships with the private sector will also help to ensure our survival. We do not believe that implementation will be a costly process, since we are talking about developing programs which rely on advanced technology. A partnership with the private sector is an option or a solution. However, in this case, we have to expect to share the benefits so that both sides have an advantage. We strongly advocate forging partnerships with the private sector in today's training environment.
Another option that we favour which would provide countless opportunities to our students is the introduction of an applied or technical bachelor's degree. Students would complete two years of courses at the college level and then go on to study for a further two years at university, graduating with applied bachelor's degree. We are not necessarily talking about tacking on an extra two years. However, a certain amount of planning will be required at the outset to ensure that academic goals are being met.
Currently, we have a program which is offered jointly by the University of St. Thomas and the College of Woodstock for third-year journalism and communications students. There are several initiatives of this nature where students can earn an applied degree from both the university and the college. We feel that this is perhaps one way to stop competing with one another and of working together to provide new students with a winning advantage.
This initiative came about because we were noticing that students with bachelor degrees were enrolling in colleges. In terms of debt load, a regular four-year university program and an additional two years at the college level represent a total of six years of study. Why not institute a program that meets the needs of these students? Students could truly benefit from an applied degree in certain fields.
[English]
It has been mentioned by my colleague from College de l'Acadie that there are several interprovincial initiatives in place. Those have existed for many years, the most obvious being the apprenticeship program. Presently, a heavy equipment apprenticeship course is delivered from Miramichi to the three Atlantic provinces. That is unique. That is the kind of cooperation that we have to pursue further if we want to survive because we, in Atlantic Canada, are relatively small compared to Ontario or even Quebec.
As you all know, the Maritime Premiers' Council was established in the early 1970s. The Maritime Provinces Higher EDUCATION Commission and the EDUCATION Foundation are creations of the council.
In 1993, an agreement was signed by the Atlantic provinces which encouraged common planning to encourage college access to students and undertake projects which would allow easier exchanges among themselves. It further encouraged joint undertakings of initiatives in areas where it would not be feasible for one province to undertake an initiative alone. I would refer to the example given by Real Samson where the teleservice will be given at distance in partnership with the three provinces for the francophone population. We believe that is a direction we should pursue.
What is happening here is not unique to New Brunswick, it is happening all across the country. The economy is changing so fast and the community college system has been able to change, but there is a price to pay to keep up with changes because technology, after two years, is outdated. Replacing technologies is very expensive.
In the past, in at least a couple of situations, when we had to implement a new course and change the equipment or replace it, the federal government was really supportive. To me, this is another challenge for us. However, if we do not want to raise the tuition fees, we need some help because. There is no point in training people if there is no job at the end. Basically, that is our philosophy. Over time it has become some kind of a value or a culture: If there is no job, what is the point of training people? In order to be really up to date, up to par, we need federal government support.
Another point I would like to touch on is national standards. As you may know, the federal government has taken the initiative to ensure common standards to training programs throughout Canada. The sector councils created for this purpose involve, mainly, the participation of the private sector in the development of these standards.
Most of the time the institutions are not involved. We have 19, I would say, sector councils in the country. The one we are participating in is tourism. I have been told it was included by accident in that, since that sector was represented on a national committee, it was appointed. In my view, this is where there should be more involvement. It is not expensive. Even if we favour the private sector participation for the establishment of national standards, we, the public institutions, should be a party to that. I would like you to review that and perhaps include it in your recommendations.
Mr. Brian McMillan, Director of Program Operations, Holland College: Many of the comments I will make have been referred to by my colleagues. However, I would like to share with you some of our concerns, as well as offer a few positive comments. We are doing some things to alleviate some of these problems.
I am from Holland College which is in Prince Edward Island. It is a community college which has seven locations throughout Prince Edward Island. We have approximately 2,200 full-time students. We also have another 7,000 to 9,000 students on average who come in and take either adult training upgrading to become eligible for Post-Secondary education learning experiences and/or we have customized training programs that we establish for business and industry.
We have such a large number of customized training programs because Holland College has established a reputation over the years for providing competency-based EDUCATION learning experiences. By that, I mean business and industry comes in and tells us what skills an employee needs to carry out a certain occupation. We then wrap a learning curriculum around that which is individualized, in other words, students proceed at their own pace to acquire these skills. In order to merit a certificate from us in a one- or two-year program, the student must be able to demonstrate those skills.
We also have what are called "advisory committees," for each of our occupations. These committees are comprised of individuals who are deemed to be leaders in that field, and they advise us, at least one or twice a year, as to what needs to be done as far as training goes to ensure that graduates of our program are on the leading edge. I believe that is important. It keeps us in touch with what is happening. It also presents a problem, though, of being able to adapt to change very quickly which, as you can appreciate, can be a challenge.
I apologize for not having a formal report to present to you. The date I received the invitation was the same date that the report was supposed to be submitted, so I could not quite meet those time lines. Having said that, though, I can provide an outline, if individuals wish, afterwards.
The title of my presentation today is "Bridging the Gap Between the Haves and the Have-nots." I will explain to you some of the issues that I think are creating the have and have-not society, and then offer you some encouraging tasks that we can undertake.
Post-Secondary education is quickly moving towards a two-tiered society: those persons who have skills; and those persons who do not have skills. Of course, the ones with skills will obtain employment and the ones without skills will not. A number of factors are leading to this rift between the skilled and unskilled.
My colleagues have already mentioned that we know today, with the current work environment, that graduates require, on average, 16 years of EDUCATION. We also know that graduates today are being asked to have a set of key competencies.
Three years ago, the Conference Board of Canada identified, a key set of competencies for all graduates, competencies such as critical thinking, decision-making, and communication skills. Not only do we need those skills, today, we need multi-skilling. Employers want persons who do not just have one set of skills but several sets of skills, and that presents another challenge. We are doing some things to try to meet that demand.
Where are the majority of jobs coming from? In other words, what type of training is required? I usually do not quote Maclean's magazine too often, except for the fact that, when I was at Mount Allison, they ranked us first for a number of years, so I thought they were a pretty credible source. Since 1990, there has been a net increase of 400,000 jobs across Canada. Since then, 147,000 jobs were obtained by persons with Grade 8 or less, and 158,000 jobs went to high school graduates. Persons who had college or technical training took over 646,000 jobs. Here is another interesting statistic to support the need for community colleges getting their fair share of the economic pie: University graduates took 452,000 jobs. That is an important statistic to keep in mind.
We cannot respond to the demand for program placements. We are presently accepting one in four graduates into some of our technology programs. As a result of with this demand, we have instituted a competitive entrance or admission requirement. That is creating some difficulties. We are only accepting the most talented persons. This means that, as of last year at Holland College, about 35 to 38 per cent of our students have already attained an undergraduate degree. The gap between community colleges and universities is quickly closing with regards to academic requirements.
Another issue we face is escalating tuition fees. We feel badly if we have to charge students more because we know the difficulties that creates, but we are faced with uncertainty in our own funding. We have to balance the books. We cannot operate in a deficit situation. Therefore, with diminishing transfer payments and with uncertainty with HRDC training dollars, it does put pressure on us.
Another significant issue, one which we have to come to terms with, is that there is not an equal opportunity today in Canada for all to acquire Post-Secondary education, given increased tuition fees, and given the increased standards for admission. We have persons who are socially disadvantaged, and disabled groups. I have been personally involved in helping to develop programs to enable disabled persons to acquire Post-Secondary education but, believe me, there are people falling through the cracks from these two ranks.
Another group which is also becoming part of the have-nots are those persons who graduate from high school with a practical or general degree. They are not finding their way into admission in post-secondary institutions. Then there is another group, who have an academic degree but, say, did not perform very well in high school. They do not succeed in competitive situations with regards to admission. Where will they get their training?
All of these factors, I believe, speak to a widening of the gap between haves and have-nots. Pretty soon we may find there is no middle-class society. There will be persons who earn minimum wage, and skilled persons who receive a very good salary. This is a concern and a challenge that I throw out to this committee to consider.
Obviously, we need resources. We are not talking about funding dollars. We need support in all sorts of areas. Things other than passing a cheque can be done.
We are currently looking at critical performance indicators for all of our programs. We want to be able to assess each program with regards to its viability from a cost perspective, from an employment perspective. How many of our students graduate and get a job?
We also want to assess from a quality perspective. What is the quality of this program? Are the instructors up to speed? Do the students receive current curriculum materials? We must be sure we are not wasting the dollars we have, that we are channelling these in the proper direction.
Another area that requires a fair amount of attention is program development and planning. A prior learning assessment is crucial. Why should students pay twice to acquire a skill they already have? With a competency-based EDUCATION model, the student can come look at a job profile, recognize he has 15 of the necessary, and know he must acquire the other 35. We can help with that assessment. That also means that government is not paying twice for the same form of EDUCATION. I would encourage prior learning assessment.
Articulation agreements must be developed between institutions. There should be a catalyst or some mechanism to encourage that to happen because, if no pressure is brought to bear, it will be 10 years before we get these things worked out. Unfortunately, and I know, coming from a university environment, we do not always understand our community college colleagues as well as we should. We have to overcome some of those barriers.
On-the-job training experiences are crucial. I think that also gives students an opportunity to demonstrate to potential employers their skills, and that leads to jobs.
We must also target transition programs. We are presently looking at establishing a learning centre and an assessment centre for those persons who do not appear to have the necessary entrance qualifications so that we can train and support them to become capable of acquiring a post-secondary EDUCATION. That takes time and money, and those persons need support.
We have established a learning centre, but the big picture in not in place. We are doing things in a piecemeal fashion. The federal department will come across with funding to set up a program, but we are not dealing with the transition from getting into Post-Secondary education to actually getting a job. What is being done to help people who are leaving a post-secondary institution find jobs? I would propose that we try some pilot projects where business and industry would interview candidates and assess whether they have potential. Industry could then work hand in hand with community colleges to have the candidates trained. For those persons who have been discouraged, it might be a two-year struggle to acquire skills, but they will see light at the end of the tunnel. There are opportunities there we should pursue.
Career planning is another area that requires attention. My colleagues have talked about partnerships with employers. I think enough has been said on that.
Obviously, we must consider more flexible and cost-efficient learning environment. Some community college labs are not being utilized in the evenings. We know technology is expensive, so we must how we use our resources. Many people who are currently employed cannot afford to take six months or three months off work. We must ensure that we partner with business and industry to provide learning opportunities.
There is a notion that many of our programs should be anchored into the world of work, in other words, the pragmatic assignments that our students undertake should be related to tasks that industry is now undertaking.
In Australia, under a program called "Unilinks," people are seconded to establish partnerships between colleges and universities and industry. If an engineering company is working on developing a product, they will go to an engineering class and those students will work on that assignment. They will prepare a presentation, write a report and submit that to the board. They have worked this out to cover everything from recognition of copyright to patenting.
We can become a little bit more creative in some of the things we are trying to do with regards to helping industry, in establishing better working relationships, and also giving our students pragmatic and realistic learning experiences within a post-secondary environment.
At least one of my colleagues talked about fostering international opportunities. If we believe that we live in a global economy, then we must model that and demonstrate that to our students and faculty. Therefore we need to be bridging and establishing relationships with other post-secondary institutions and encouraging our students to take job placements overseas. I saw this happen quite successfully in a previous position I had. Students trained in England or Switzerland for two months. This was an excellent learning opportunity for them. As well, it strengthened their resumes because taking advantage of an opportunity like that says something about the person who does it. Employers are looking for those things as a value-added aspect to their employees.
I believe more energy has to go into faculty and staff development. Someone mentioned people with receding hair lines. I do not know if they were looking at the group here or not, but there is no doubt in my mind that we need more secondments.
We pride ourselves in the fact that our instructors are still current. They practise in industry, whether it be engineering, marine technology, or whatever. We must keep those linkages and we should rotate people in those positions so that we all stay current in our thinking. As part of the evaluation program for staff, the staff should put together a personal development plan as to how they will, over a three-year period, develop in their chosen fields.
We do have a major challenge ahead of us because we are moving to a two-tier system. However, there are a number of projects underway now which can help close that gap, but we will have to effectively utilize the resources to accomplish that goal.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
I understand that the federal government is turning retraining over to the provinces and utilizing funds from the Employment Insurance fund. Do you have any comment on that?
Mr. Buckley: I feel very strongly about the comment you have just made, Mr. Chairman. The federal government has taken direct action to get out of training. That is a stated policy. That is equated with the withdrawal of funds for that.
The federal government share of job training in the Nova Scotia Community College amounted to $8.6 million. All of that has been withdrawn, not transferred to Nova Scotia -- withdrawn. It is no longer a part of federal funding in job training. The consequence of that was, in July of 1996, we announced the closure of five campuses of our college. Responsibility for job training has been transferred to the province, yes.
Perhaps others have a different view of this and I would ask those from other provinces to comment.
Senator Forest: Mr. Chairman, if I may, the federal government has signed, I know within Alberta, an agreement with respect to this. I believe it was also signed with one other province. Has New Brunswick signed such an agreement?
Mr. Paulin: Yes, New Brunswick has signed for devolution of responsibility to the province for training, beginning next April. The province will be responsible for the training, and, basically, they will be administering the fund on behalf of the federal government. We will have a better reading of the situation after we have been in operation for a full year, but we are very optimistic in the sense that the onus will be on the student to select programs and it will be more outcome-driven.
The federal government was paying the whole shot for the training of some students, with no result. This new scenario will be more result-oriented, result-focused, for the student, but the learner will choose which direction to take.
Formerly, the federal government purchased training on behalf of the student and stipulated which institution the student should attend.Students had no choice. Now the onus will be on the student. He will shop for training and he will take the best. In this system they will have some kind of a single window wicket where the client will be advised and counselled on which training to take. There will be some kind screening process. As I said, it is only theory at this point in time but we will be starting to deliver in almost a month from now.
Senator DeWare: When this committee was dealing with the EI bill, we were given to understand that the funds for training would be transferred to the provinces.
If it is transferred to the provinces, will the provinces give the community colleges the benefit of the money that they receive for training, or will the private sector, who are going to be in competition with you, get the money for the training?
Mr. Sparkes: I would argue that, when students go shopping, with the proliferation of private training institutions, it may not be unlike going shopping for a used car. Students will be open to all sorts of ploys and advertising. We can talk about counselling and the readiness of the people to assist in the selection of training programs but, frankly, I do not believe that the systems are in place to expedite that.
The funds being transferred to the provinces, I believe, are very much diminished. I have seen the post-secondary budget for the public college operation in Newfoundland and Labrador go from $55 million to $45 million in the past three to four years, and much of that was direct federal funding. You can carve it up whichever way you like with the onus being on the student for results. I would like to think that the onus was always on us as a system, including the students for results.
Senator DeWare: How can you prepare courses and provide instructors for students if you do not know whether they are going to apply for those courses?
Mr. Sparkes: That is a good question as it relates to the public role for post-secondary institutions in this country. I certainly have no problem with supporting the private sector, but it does raise some questions. I think this is the beginning of the end of the public post-secondary system. I believe we are on a slippery slope. This is an easy way to privatize public post-secondary EDUCATION and training, or much of it. Much of it has already been privatized. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the enrolment in private schools is almost the same as it is in public colleges.
Senator DeWare: This is a very good reason to have national standards. If you have national standards, then the private sector will have to comply to those standards. I have some very serious concerns about this whole training program and whether the money is going to be available. We were told it would be.
Mr. Sparkes: Another important question to ask is: To whom is the money going to be available? I would argue that the most disenfranchised now have no access to federal money. If you are not on EI, you are out of luck. The most underpostated and underskilled, the people who have least opportunity to get work in the first place so they can qualify for EI, will be out of luck.
Mr. McMillan: Industry tells us that they want people who already have some skills. There are some people on EI who would have the necessary background but, unfortunately, the lion's share do not.
I am not sure that the amount of funding transferred was the same as was provided in the past.
Further, it is my understanding that the provinces will decide how to spend that funding.
Senator DeWare: That is right.
Mr. McMillan: If they choose, they can put it into business development. I think that there is a fair amount of flexibility. I guess the arrangement was that the provinces would decide whether they wanted to put the funding into universities or community colleges. To be quite canded, we are not sure what to anticipate.
Mr. Paulin: As I understand the agreement, the money must be spent on training. The federal government has a list of benchmarks covering that, and the province will be measured or judged. With this devolution over three years, the federal government will remain heavily involved in monitoring results
Money will have to be spent on training. This is flexible but it has to be done within that envelope of training. As a province, I do not think we will have that choice, unless we bend the rules.
Mr. McMillan: I understand that some premiers have gone to Ottawa to ask what type of flexibility is in that EI pool of cash. I am not suggesting that the funds may all be used for training, but I think people are considering other ways of using that funding in order to overcome unemployment, and those may not always equate to training.
Senator Losier-Cools: I think the committee should know exactly what is contained in those agreements. I was present when the Premier of New Brunswick signed the agreement in Ottawa, and from what I understood, the money is to go into job training. Perhaps the committee should hear from someone from Human Resources to explain that package.
The Chairman: We will have easier access to that information in Ottawa.
Senator Perrault:It was suggested to us today that there is value in having contacts with other colleges and institutions of the same type. What kind of contacts do you have with community colleges in British Columbia and the other provinces? If those contacts are in existence, what kind of information is interchanged? Is it possible for a college in Alberta to access your library, for example, or vice versa? Is there a national system of locating books and reference guides?
The Chairman: I know that the daughter of the vice-chairman of Capilano College attended the culinary institute in Prince Edward Island, got a certificate there, and then got a job as a chef in Europe. That demonstrates the communication between those two colleges.
Senator Perrault: What do you suggest should be done that is not being done? We were told that the contacts with other institutions are important and of value.
Mr. Buckley: Mr. Chairman, the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, which made a presentation to you, is very active in this area. One hundred and seventy colleges and technical institutes from all provinces and territories belong to it. It is operated by an elected board. It gives us an opportunity to come together on cooperative efforts and brings together the resources of colleges that we can call on and share with one another.
There is very open communication between the colleges. With the electronic means we now have to communicate with one another, distance is almost irrelevant. We can communicate virtually instantaneously.
The Chairman: I presume all of the colleges are on the Internet.
Mr. Buckley: Yes we are.
Senator Perrault: Another matter of concern to many Canadians is the mobility of labour. Some say that, if there is no employment in a certain area, the family can move to a province where there are many jobs, such as Alberta, which has a good economy now. We then run into this ridiculous business where courses are not accepted. Surely, that is an impediment to economic development.
Are we making progress in trying to develop national standards? At times, I despair. Even internally, we do not have free trade, yet we are part of the free trade alliance in the world.
Mr. Sparkes: My own feeling is that college and university transfer, it is still far from what it should be. As a college in Newfoundland and Labrador we have been trying to work out one year of transfer with Memorial University. We are not there yet.
The Ministers of EDUCATION have a pan-Canadian protocol, I believe, relative to within the university sector, and that is proceeding at a glacial pace. This is an issue where delay harms people. They have college training which is not being evaluated and transferred to university training.
My colleague from Holland College mentioned prior learning assessment. Colleges are making some progress in this regard, but we have miles and miles to go.
Senator Perrault: That has to run contrary to the national interest.
Mr. Sparkes: This is an area where the funding agencies need to tighten the strangle knot a bit to motivate this to proceed more quickly. Academics will argue forever about the qualifications of an instructor to teach a first-year English course. It is very frustrating.
The Chairman: Is there any jealousy between the universities and the colleges?
Senator DeWare: I do not think that is a proper question.
Senator Perrault: You need not answer it.
Senator DeWare: That is not the proper word.
Mr. Sparkes: There is a lack of understanding, I believe.
Mr. McMillan: On that point, having worked in both environments, I agree with you that a lot of it relates to understanding. When dollars are tight, there is an old saying: The animals look at each other differently around the water hole. We must provide incentives and opportunities to realize that, if we partner, we will all win.
Senator Perrault: That makes sense.
Mr. McMillan: A strategy should be put in place to identify the strengths of community colleges and the strengths of universities. Then we could respect each other's expertise.
Senator Perrault: We need a national game plan.
Mr. McMillan:It would be helpful but, as I say, with diminishing dollars, people tend to put up roadblocks.
Senator Perrault: Some constructive remarks were made about our trading relations and our trading policies. It was said that we have one of the lowest percentages of involvement by young people in national studies relating to trade. That may well be true. Some colleges are trying to do something about that.
Capilano College has a very successful program to teach young people the languages of the Pacific Rim so they have the ability to work in Asia. Perhaps the colleges need to cooperate in that area of learning to equip us to gain our share of the international market. At one time we were the largest trading country in the world on a per capita basis.
Finally, how does our research effort compare to our chief competitors? Should we be more involved in the research sector? OECD nations, are substantially ahead of us.
Mr. Buckley: Mr. Chairman, traditionally, that has not been a recognized role of the colleges. Our mandate is job training. Research is the proper domain of the universities, and you will probably find out in today's budget that that is being re-emphasized, to the detriment of funding to job training.
[Translation]
Senator Losier-Cool: Mr. Samson, further to what Senator Perrault has just said about communication, have you ever been involved in distance EDUCATION or have you ever considered linking up with francophones in Western Canada? Is the transfer of provincial courses an option?
Mr. Samson: Yes, we have received requests from Saskatchewan. They have asked for our cooperation. Three hours is a fairly substantial, albeit not insurmountable, time difference. Technology would make this possible. We also had discussions with Newfoundland. We are somewhat like a McDonald's. Today, you do not have an institution, but tomorrow morning you will have one. Our technological support makes all of this possible. We have also held discussions with Louisiana and other provinces. We are experiencing rapid growth and we want this trend to continue. We are also working with Quebec and Ontario. We owe a great deal to New Brunswick's francophone community and to the world of technology. Technology was responsible for our institution's inception and we intend to continue exploiting it in the years to come.
Mention was made of transfers and devolution; it is very important that we consider francophones and minorities, particularly when it is a question of transferring these powers to provinces which are not necessarily concerned about the French language and minorities. Nova Scotia has only had French language schools for a few years now. It is all well and good to say that we are going to transfer these powers to the province, but I agree with my colleagues. Some support this move, while others are opposed to it.
However, I would ask you to consider the francophone fact and the francophone minority outside Quebec, as representatives of the federal government. My fear is that very little of this funding will find its way into the hands of our French language institutions. We have come a long way and we have made many anglophone friends in the province of Nova Scotia. That is why we are here today. Without these very important friends, this would not be possible. This being said, however, it is still a matter of dollars and cents and a matter of wanting to do more. Therefore, I would ask you to take our situation into account in your deliberations.
Senator Losier-Cool: If it were only up to me.
[English]
Senator Lavoie-Roux: If you want to give good advice about the budget, you should first listen to these people.
[Translation]
I would like you to enlighten me on one point. Everyone talks about national standards for colleges. They also refer to such standards for universities. I get the impression, however, that in the case of your community colleges, the standards are not the same as they are for our CEGEPs, except perhaps for the professional component.
Unless I am unclear on the concept of community colleges in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and elsewhere, I don't really see how these standards can be similar, given that Quebec community colleges and those in other provinces have a different orientation. In Quebec, you have the CEGEPs, while in other provinces you have community colleges.
Mr. Paulin: For example, we have currently purchased 60 places in Quebec CEGEPs for New Brunswick francophones.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: You have bought places?
Mr. Paulin: Yes, in Quebec CEGEPs. In some fields, the CEGEPs offer the same type of training that we do. For example, in the field of technology, the CEGEPs offer the same courses. We have purchased 70 places in various health care programs such as those designed to train dental hygienists and respiratory technologists.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Is that because you do not offer these programs?
Mr. Paulin: It would be too expensive for us to set up programs in these fields.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: You are talking strictly about the professional component of the CEGEPs, not about the general courses.
Mr. Paulin: That is correct. However, we are focussing more and more on these fields. Currently, we have an agreement in place with UCCB of the University of Nova Scotia whereby community college students are accepted for one or two years. The matter of course credits has been resolved. The UCCB in Nova Scotia recognizes community college programs in civil engineering and will accept the students for the university degree program.
This university has already taken the lead and this is to its advantage. Universities and colleges in New Brunswick have approved transfers of credits for several years now and this is done on a regular basis. Many of our programs are accepted by universities. One year, it is civil engineering, the next, UMP. Things are going rather well in this field. This is the university that has gone the furthest. However, there is no problem here with us. We are not going to start checking objectives, the qualifications of the professor, the number of course hours and so forth. We accept this officially.
However, getting back to your question, as far as we are concerned, CEGEPs provide the same kind of technological or technical training.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: When you say that you buy places, does this mean that the Government of New Brunswick pays all of the costs that a student incurs when he goes to Quebec?
Mr. Paulin: If our friends from Quebec were here, they would answer no, you pay 75 per cent. However, I know that we pay anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000 per enrolment. This is approximately equivalent to the cost of training a student in New Brunswick.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: However, does the student pay anything?
Mr. Paulin: No, except that initially, the student pays the provincial tuition fees. Aside from that, he is totally subsidized.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Then the province picks up the tab for the difference. Before we move on to discussing national CEGEP standards, I have to say that this situation seems rather utopian to me.
Mr. Paulin: However, those who graduate from Quebec CEGEPs return home to work in the province. There are standards in place. As long as the person is skilled, the industry will employ him. Without a diploma, it is difficult to find work. When institutions are recognized for providing sound training, regardless of where you graduated, if you are skilled, you will be hired by industry. At times, this becomes almost too academic a question.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: In any event, I think that we need to give the matter more consideration before we draft national standards.
[English]
Senator DeWare: New Brunswick also buys seats. I suppose it applies both ways. We buy seats from the Truro Agricultural Department. Is that still going on? We buy them from Dalhousie.
Mr. Paulin: Yes.
Senator DeWare:Those programs are not available in New Brunswick.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Is there a police program in New Brunswick?
Senator DeWare:No, but Prince Edward Island has a major program.
Senator DeWare: The ACCC did appear before our committee, although I do not think Senator Perrault was present that day. They presented a very positive outlook, especially in the field of advanced EDUCATION and training. They were upbeat and positive and stated that we are going in the right direction by encouraging the exchange of overseas students.
[Translation]
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Where are your nurses trained?
Mr. Samson: I can answer for Nova Scotia. The situation is different in New Brunswick. We do not have a French language nursing program in Nova Scotia. We lag far behind New Brunswick in this respect. Mr. Buckley can address this issue, but I know that many anglophones are now being trained in universities. They are pursuing bachelor degrees in science. I am not certain of the exact title of the program.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Do all nurses now entering the labour force have a bachelors degree in nursing?
Mr. Samson: No, there are still hospitals that award two-year nursing diplomas. However, I do not know if there is a standard in place in Nova Scotia.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Then the situation seems to vary from one province to the next.
Mr. Samson: Yes, it does. In some provinces, we have the two-year nursing certificate, whereas in others, we have the university degree.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: In Quebec, we have a three-year CEGEP program. If you are going for a bachelors degree, we are talking about an additional two years. Universities offer a five-year program. Therefore, whether or not programs are equivalent is not a simple matter.
Mr. Paulin: If I might add something, by the year 2000, nurses in New Brunswick will need to have at least a bachelor's degree.
[English]
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Will it make a better nurse? It remains to be seen.
Mr. Paulin: Time will tell.
The Chairman: Thank you again.
I understand we have three walk-ons who want to make a statement, Dan Bessey, Jarrod Hicks and Kevin Lacey.
Mr. Dan Bessey, President, West Viking Student Association: In your closing comments, you mentioned the information highway. You referred to it as the electronic highway, which would include Internet and e-mail and such. I believe that the colleges should place more emphasis on training in these areas. Although the equipment is available to students, EDUCATION is not. Very few campuses, at least in the college scene, offer any kind of an Internet course.
Since I am cpresently doing a journalism course at West Viking, much of my work will involve using this type of technology, Internet. Our former sources of information, such as newspapers and radio stations, are seeing a great decrease in employment because of the Internet. I feel that instruction in these electronic means of information should be offered at the colleges and in EDUCATIONal settings where there is a high demand for it.
You also mentioned distance EDUCATION. I disagree with that form of learning because Post-Secondary education should not simply mean learning theories or how to apply EDUCATION to practical industry use. It also involves economic and social standards. If we are turning more to distance EDUCATION and using electronic information sources, much of the EDUCATION we are now obtaining as individuals by our interaction with others while going to college will be limited. However, I do relize that this is not recognized as academic EDUCATION. I feel there should be less emphasis placed on distance EDUCATION.
I feel that the subject of loans, debt loads and spending was left by the wayside. We can talk about transfer of credits and other valid issues, but the main concerns in every student's mind right now is the availability of funding, student loans, and repayment arrangements. I have no option but to attend Post-Secondary education. If I do not, I will spend the rest of my life as a drain on society. However, I will be in exactly the same boat if I attend Post-Secondary education and, three years later. have to declare personal bankruptcy because my loan is due and I cannot pay it back. Therefore, I think the most important issue is the spending cuts, although I do not know exactly what can be done about that.
You were presented with some alternatives and some recommendations of what could be done in that area. I strongly suggest that the committee consider those recommendations.
I brought to Senator DeWare's the academic achievement bursaries the New Brunswick Student Association presented as a recommendation, as well as the fact that universities that have a high level of achievement should be given extra help to be able to incorporate more innovative courses in their programs. I think both of these approaches are unfair and reflect an elitist view of the EDUCATION system. I am not a person who obtains an 80 average in any type of EDUCATION. I have not done so since I attended elementary school. I am a fairly average student. However, as student politicians, we speakfor all students, not just those who can achieve high levels of EDUCATION or high academic standing. How you define academic merit or achievement is a dangerous subject because, if a student who can obtain 80s because he or she is rather more intelligent than I am, has a better chance of succeeding in life, I think I am being short-changed by a society that should not just offer EDUCATION to high achievers, but to all members of society who have a desire to be productive members. Anybody who is working hard should have the same opportunities as anyone else.
As I understood the recommendation respecting universities that are already doing well, it was that these universities would receive a means to incorporate even more innovative courses. You would then have universities that are well advanced in the courses that they can offer, and universities that are not as well advanced. In fact, I think it should be the other way around. Universities that are suffering should be given the means to incorporate more innovative courses.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Bessey. Mr. Hicks, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Jarrod Hicks, President, Engineering Technology, Cabot College of St. Johns: Mr. Chairman and honourable senators, today we heard mention of various topics including student loans, scholarships, bursaries, grants, awards, and part-time jobs being done by full-time students. My concern is that we have not dealt with the collective effect of all of these items. Student financing requires some changes. As it stands, if a student receives a scholarship, bursary, award, grant, et cetera, that amount of money is dpostted from the loan that the student receives. If a student should have to take a part-time job, the amount of the earnings is taken out of his student loan. It is expected to be repaid back shortly after they receive it. If it is at all possible, this should be addressed to help students better themselves while in school and allow them to get a little bit further ahead. Some students who are not receiving loans are making money and getting scholarships on top of the money they already have.
Scholarships should be put in place to reward the student for academic achievements. That money should not be dpostted from the student loan because you will be rposting the amount of money the student has throughout the year and that student is not being rewarded for doing what he did.
The Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Lacey, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Kevin Lacey, Student, Dalhousie University: Yes, I do. I am a second-year student in political science at Dalhousie. I want to talk about the fact that students and student lobbyists have lost track of what is going on in the university system. Since the 1960s, when many of these student organizations were created, they have been coming to government, year in and year out, demanding more and more money. I do not have a Ph.D., and I am not the head of a student lobby group, but I have come to the realization that government is under serious financial strain and it is in the best interests of students and society alike to deal with those problems in some other way.We must find a different way of dealing with the same old problems that universities are experiencing now.
What I am not hearing is a commitment by students. My major concern with Post-Secondary education is the quality of EDUCATION, and that is as it should be. We can take steps to make Post-Secondary education more accessible without dumping huge amounts of money into the system.
I have considered a number of proposals, one being an income contingent loan repayment plan. I am sure you have heard from experts who are a lot more familiar with that than I am. Students paying back their loans on an income basis is a far more efficient system. The United Nations, in 1992, concluded that this is the most efficient system possible. Of course it is much more efficient compared to Canada's mortgage loan system.
In 1993, Statistics Canada did a study of what happened to students after they had graduated. They found that students were getting jobs in their field a year and a half after graduation, but that they had to start repayment of their loans after six months. Earlier this morning Senator Bonnell talked about the problems with defaulting on loans. Approximately 40 per cent of loans are in default in the first year. You are asking people to pay back before they have actually received the benefits of their EDUCATION.
The last issue I would touch on is accessibility. We live in a society today which has undergone major changes since the 1960s. Young adults are living with their parents a lot longer. Of course that is an advantage to students who live in urban areas. People living in cities such as Halifax have access to two universities and they can live at home. That makes university far more accessible to those students than it is for student who come from, say, Berwick, Nova Scotia, which is where I come from. It is a long way from any university. You have to move away from parental support. It is time to start thinking about a student loan system that would help promote rural students in taking part in Post-Secondary education and deal with the distance problem.
I do not think universities are like K-Mart; and I do not think "the lowest price is the law." I think that the best quality EDUCATION is the most important thing we can offer our students.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: I was told this morning that it cost approximately $4,200 for room and board -- $2,000 for tuition fees and $2,400 books and incidentals. To me $2,400 seems like a lot of money for books. After four years the student would have amassed quite a library, having bought $10,000 worth of books. How can we rposte that figures?
Senator DeWare: That figure includes tuition.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Apparently, in some places, tuition has doubled over the last five or ten years.
Mr. Bessey: I think those tuition cuts you are speaking of relate to the university level. I am not qualified to answer because I am a college student, never having attended university.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Are you all college students?
Mr. Bessey:No.
However, I do want to mention the high cost of equipment in practical courses such as journalism where students have to buy, say, cameras and video equipment.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: I was asking about university this morning.
Mr. Lacey: You mentioned the $2,400 for incidentals. At university we often use articles which are photocopied from different sources. With the new copyright legislation, we are forced to pay a certain amount of money to do that. For example, a book that used to cost $10 is now about $25. Do not quote me on the figures, but it was somewhere close to that. The cost of books has escalated.
The other problem with books is the editions keep changing. There has to be some way to sort of dealing with that.
Senator Lavoie-Roux:Are you saying that the $2,400 is justified.
Mr. Kevin Lacey: I am saying that the $2,400 has risen over a period of time and that, for the most part, it is justified.
Senator DeWare: I had a different aspect of distance EDUCATION than what you described. I think distance EDUCATION would be very effective for students in the north or students in isolated communities who have difficulty accessing our EDUCATION programs.
The other aspect of that is EDUCATIONal programs that are put on by industry. Industry could decide it wanted to offer course on to upgrade its staff across the continent. Those people could be in Boise, Idaho or Thunder Bay, and all of them could access those courses through distance EDUCATION.
Mr. Bessey: I do agree with you to an extent. For example, francophone communities would benefit from this access. In fact, they would have no access to this level of EDUCATION without distance EDUCATION.
In West Viking, we have hired a computer programmer who has programmed every course into the Internet. Every course that is offered is being incorporated into the Internet so that students can take these courses over the Internet. While it may help some, I think the danger is that some people may think that they are getting the same EDUCATION without attending a post-secondary institution when, in actuality, they are not. I think they are actually losing a lot from not attending a post-secondary institution and not having the assistance of a regular instructor.
The Chairman: Thank you.
The committee adjourned.