Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs,
Science and Technology
Subcommittee on Post-Secondary education
Issue 13 - Evidence for the afternoon sitting
OTTAWA, Wednesday, April 16, 1997
The Subcommittee on Post-Secondary education of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, met this day at 3:15 p.m. to continue its inquiry into the state of Post-Secondary education in Canada.
Senator Thérèse Lavoie-Roux (Deputy Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chairman: Good afternoon. Mr. Young, please introduce your companion, after which you may proceed to make your opening comments.
Mr. Terence Young, Parliamentary Assistant to the Ontario Minister of EDUCATION and Training: Madam Chairman, with me today is Mr. Louis Lizotte from the Ministry of EDUCATION.
Madam Chair, honourable senators, I am a member of the provincial parliament for Halton Centre and I am also Parliamentary Assistant to the Ontario Minister of EDUCATION, the Honourable Mr. John Snobelen, with responsibilities for colleges and universities.
I want to thank you for this opportunity to address the Subcommittee on Post-Secondary education. Although EDUCATION in Canada falls under the jurisdiction of the provinces, it is also a matter of great national concern. To ensure the future prosperity of the country, provincial governments must be able to count on the federal government to share the responsibility for Post-Secondary education. I do not mean to say that we should be duplicating programs or services that are already supplied provincially. What the provinces need is a clear financial commitment from the federal government. We need assurances that EDUCATION for our next generation of Canadians will be a federal priority.
In his February 4, 1997, State of the Union Address, United States President Clinton promised the American people to strengthen EDUCATION and to harness the forces of technology and science. He went further, stating that EDUCATION would be his number one priority for the next four years.
Can we afford to do any less for our Canadian students? We have all heard about the global economy and the international marketplace. If our friends and our allies are producing more and better qualified graduates, Canada stands to be left behind with little hope of catching up. That is why Ontario welcomes this investigation into the state of Post-Secondary education in Canada. It is why I am here today to tell you about our hopes for future collaboration with the federal government in the areas of student assistance, labour market training and post-secondary research.
Post-Secondary education has a long and a proud history in Ontario. At the beginning of the last century, we had a few religious-based colleges scattered across the province. In the intervening time we have built on that foundation and created a world class system of universities, colleges of applied arts and technology and training programs. Thousands of students come from all parts of the world to study here in Ontario. We have internationally recognized programs in medicine, electric engineering, computer animation and hospitality, just to name a few.
Sheridan College's computer and classical animation program was described in a recent Maclean's article as "the Harvard of animation schools -- on a world-wide basis." In fact, the program has such a reputation that demand far exceeds the number of places available. For this coming September, for example, the animation program has received 2,791 applications for its 154 places.
In the last 10 years, Ontario universities have produced two Nobel Prize winners, John Polanyi for chemistry and Bertram Brockhouse for physics. In the latest Maclean's annual ranking of Canadian universities, Ontario took the first, second and fifth spot of the country's top five medical/doctoral universities. Among comprehensive universities, three of the top five are in Ontario; and, for primarily undergraduate universities, two of the top five are in Ontario.
So what do we have to worry about? Creating excellence is difficult. Preserving it is even more difficult. Changes in technology, in the economic climate, in the job market and in government spending make it necessary for us to reform EDUCATION spending. Our government has made the reform of post-secondary EDUCATION and training a priority. Access to higher EDUCATION is central to our long-term economic potential as a province.
There is no better job creation program than Post-Secondary education. People with Post-Secondary education enjoy both much higher earnings and much lower unemployment rates than those without this advantage.
In recent years, there have been increased pressures on governments, institutions and students. Clearly, new directions were needed for Post-Secondary education. One of our first actions was to set up the Advisory Panel on Future Directions for Post-Secondary education. As you will hear from Dr. David Smith, the panel's recommendations have given us much to consider as we build our strategy for Post-Secondary education in Ontario. For example, the panel recommended providing stable funding for college and universities as a first step to raising funding to the average of the other provinces. Our transfer payments to colleges and universities for 1997-98 will remain at the same level as last year, close to $2.2 billion. Even though the federal dollars will have decreased by more than 42 per cent, Ontario's post-secondary spending has only gone down by 2 per cent.
We have also adopted in part the panel's recommendation to deregulate tuition fees by allowing colleges and universities the option of increasing tuition fees for 1997-98 by a total of up to 10 per cent. The maximum single increase for any one program will be 20 per cent.
Making EDUCATION accessible also means making it affordable. No student should be denied access to higher EDUCATION just because they cannot afford it. The Ontario government's approach to student funding has been to target students who are truly in need. That is why we require our colleges and universities to set aside 30 per cent of any tuition fee increases for student assistance.
We have also demonstrated our commitment to accessibility for students by substantially increasing funds in the Ontario Student Assistant Program. Between 1995-96 and 1997-98, the Ontario government will have more than doubled its annual cash outlay on student assistance, from a total of $232 million in 1995-96, to an estimated amount of $528 million in 1997-98, helping close to one-quarter of a million students achieve their personal goals.
The province is also investing in student assistance through the Ontario Student Opportunity Trust Fund. This program has been an outstanding success, matching dollar for dollar private contributions in cash or pledges received up to March 31, 1997. Our original estimate was that colleges and universities would be able to raise $100 million in contributions on their own. Many institutions reached their original targets and went on to raise even more. While final figures are not yet available, we now expect that more than $100 million will be raised, and we will still match every dollar raised.
For many of our colleges of applied arts and technology, this is the first time they have done any fundraising, and some institutions have been notably successful at it, for example, Northern College in Timmins expects to achieve its campaign goal of $1 million. Considering the size of the college, this will put the level of donation per student at this college close to that of our most successful large universities. It is a testimony to the level of support the college enjoys in its own community in Northeastern Ontario. The big winners, of course, will be the students.
Based on average bursary levels, we can already foresee that more than 10,000 students across Ontario will benefit each year. Extra student assistance will also become available through the recently announced Ontario Merit Scholarships. This new program will reward the top 2 per cent of students at publicly funded colleges and universities in Ontario by reimbursing them for their tuition costs. The first round of Ontario Merit Scholarships will be awarded based on marks achieved in 1997-98.
In Ontario, we believe that the government's commitment to students extends beyond dollars and cents. We must anticipate what students will need in the future. There are no more certainties, least of all with EDUCATION. The future of EDUCATION is about creating options for our students, giving them flexibility.
One of the ways we have done this is by encouraging transfer agreements between colleges and universities. By combining practical training with a university degree, our graduates can hit the ground running and never look back. That is the promise of transfer agreements.
For example, Centennial College and York University have programs that allow students to work simultaneously towards a degree and diploma in corporate communications or book and magazine publishing. Ryerson Polytechnic University will accept a student with a three-year diploma in business administration from Humber College into their Bachelor of Business Management program with two years of advanced standing. This will allow the student to graduate with a business administration diploma and a four-year Bachelor of Business Management degree in five years instead of seven.
It is important to note that students from universities also transfer to colleges with advance standing or are admitted into special programs that take into account the university EDUCATION they already have. These sorts of arrangements make more efficient use of scarce resources, not only in economic terms but, more important, in terms of the lives of students and the time they must spend in reaching their academic goals.
The Ontario Ministry of EDUCATION and Training is giving financial support to the College-University Consortium Council to help them develop more of these transfer agreements. We would like to see this repeated on a national scale. The student mobility project of the Council of Ministers of EDUCATION has been looking into this issue; we support their efforts.
In terms of federal funding, the partnership upon which our post-secondary EDUCATION system was built has been challenged by the federal government's significant rposttions in transfers to the provinces for health, social services and Post-Secondary education.
By 1998-99, CHST cash payments to the provinces will have been rposted by 42.5 per cent. By contrast, federal spending on all other programs will have been rposted by only 1.5 per cent. Furthermore, Ontario does not receive a fair allocation of federal funds under the CHST. In 1996-97, Ontario received $420 million less than it would have if the CHST funding were distributed on an equal per capita basis. Over the next five years, Ontario's loss from unfairness in the federal allocation will amount to $2.1 billion.
I want to make it clear that Ontario supports the principle of equalization among provinces, but that federal programs outside the equalization program should treat all citizens equitably. For student assistance, our government believes that students who can should pay a fair share of what it costs to postate them. However, there must also be assistance available for qualified students in financial need. This is one area in which federal and provincial governments should be working together to benefit Canadian students.
That is why Ontario has asked the federal government to work with us to give deserving students a break. We want to create a loan repayment program that will allow students to pay back loans based on their income after graduation. In its recent budget, the federal government agreed with the Common Sense Revolution recommendation to create a new income-contingent repayment plan. Two successive Ontario governments have been negotiating this issue with the federal government since 1995. We are on our third Minister of Human Resources Development Canada. How much longer can Ontario students be expected to wait? We need to see a workable plan in place for September 1997.
To move the issue forward, I hope that you will see fit to make specific recommendations on this matter. Agreement between the two levels of government should come soon, at least before the upcoming federal election. Details must be worked out by staff, but time is of the essence. Student representatives, EDUCATIONal institutions and lending institutions will need to be involved in discussions on the specifics before any new loan repayment system is put in place. Therefore, I urge you to make a quick announcement concerning introduction of an income-contingent loan repayment plan one of your first recommendations.
The measures I have outlined would give us a good basis for reforming student assistance. Clearly, some reform is necessary because more students than ever before are looking for financial help. The number of OSAP recipients has increased by 53 per cent since 1991-92. It has gone from 142,000 to 217,000. The average amount of assistance has increased by 59 per cent since 1991-92 from $4,800 to $7,613 on average. We need to move quickly on a federal-provincial income-contingent loan repayment plan to ensure that access is maintained.
In any discussion of Post-Secondary education, we cannot ignore the contribution that university research makes to the social, economic and intellectual life of this country. By definition, the benefits of research done at our universities are uncertain when the research is undertaken. However, how much poorer would we all be without the contributions made by scientists and scholars at our universities?
Ontario supports the ongoing research efforts of our universities, mostly through our general operating grants. It is estimated that the portion of our operating grants that are used to support research amounts to several hundreds of millions of dollars in addition to some targeted envelopes.
Our province recognizes the importance of post-secondary research and we are in the process of developing a new research policy. Dr. David Smith, the former chair of Ontario's Advisory Panel on Future Directions for Post-secondary EDUCATION from whom you will hear this afternoon, has been retained currently by the ministry to develop options on how best to maximize the province's research dollars.
The recently announced Canada Foundation for Innovation is a move in the right direction because Ontario is especially worried by last year's cut to the federal research granting councils ranging from 10 per cent to 17 per cent.
What this country needs is a long-term commitment from the federal government to support research. We are living in times of great change. Canadians will either be in the forefront of change, innovators and originators, or we will be followers, forever struggling to catch up to the latest inventions. We need a whole-hearted commitment from the federal government in this area.
With regard to training, Ontario supports in principle the federal government's offer to transfer labour market training responsibilities to the provinces. An appropriate training agreement would let the provinces deliver more effective and more cost-efficient training, while rposting overlap and duplication between the two levels of government. This would be working smarter, something with regard to which we are all in favour.
There is only one difficulty, however. Ontario has 36 per cent of national unemployment and 39 per cent of Canada's labour force, yet the federal government has offered us only 27 per cent of the total available funding for 1997-98. This is blatantly unfair. No matter how it is sugar coated, no matter how it is disguised, the fact remains that Ontario citizens are not being treated equitably. Ontario citizens need labour market training programs just as much as other Canadians. What is more, it is their right.
If this subcommittee intends to make meaningful recommendations about Post-Secondary education in Canada, equitable funding for training should be near the top of your list.
The Ontario government has made a commitment to give our students today and tomorrow a solid foundation upon which to build their lives. Ontario's future prosperity depends on the success of its students. We are doing our best to give them the support they need and deserve to achieve that success.
Reviewing our post-secondary system by an independent panel, working on an income-contingent loan repayment program, creating trust funds for students, and maintaining our level of transfer funds this year are some of the actions Ontario has taken to give students the highest quality EDUCATION.
In summary, here is what we would like the federal government to do to best support the efforts of the provinces in Post-Secondary education. Ontario commends the commitment by the federal government to support post-secondary research infrastructure. We also urge that the budgets of the three main federal research granting councils be at least maintained, if not increased.
The provinces must have adequate funding to transfer the labour market training programs from the federal government distributed equitably among the provinces based on their share of the national labour force.
We are asking the federal government to work with Ontario to move quickly on introducing an income-contingent student loan repayment plan. I urge this committee to recommend that the federal government introduce jointly with interested provinces an income-contingent repayment plan for loans issued for the upcoming academic year.
During the last provincial election, we promised to introduce income-contingent loan repayment as a student financing alternative. In its 1997 budget, the federal government announced its willingness to work with the provinces on this issue. Now is the time for action. An announcement before the federal election would get the wheels turning. It would give the go-ahead to staff from both levels of government who have already met and who are ready to move ahead on this initiative.
If the federal government adopts our recommendations, it will be doing its part to ensure that Canada has a Post-Secondary education system that will thrive in the global economy. Thank you.
The Deputy Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Young. That was a very comprehensive presentation with several good suggestions. We certainly will pay a great deal of attention to them.
Senator Forest: I, too, was pleased to hear your report this afternoon because the reports we heard this morning were rather bleak. The students' report was entitled, "Crisis in Progress."
I have had a great deal of experience with the universities in Alberta, where we always envied the situation in Ontario. We felt you were very well-funded.
I understand the difficulty that rposted transfer payments from the federal government create for the provinces. I realize this has hurt you.
We have been asked at different times about directing these transfer payments to the provinces into a special envelope for Post-Secondary education, or EDUCATION in general. Some of the provinces feel that EDUCATION is getting short shrift when compared with health care. The concern of those who appeared before us this morning was that, perhaps, they were not getting their fair share. However, I think the federal position is that in giving the funds to the provinces the provinces will have some flexibility to distribute this money.
I asked questions this morning about the income-contingency loan program. I understand from what we were told this morning that it was a fait accompli, that it was in the works. Is that not the case, sir?
Mr. Young: We have been working on it with three successive federal ministers. Our senior civil servants and federal senior civil servants have been doing some modelling. They have some very good ideas as to how it will work, how it will shape up, but we need a commitment in this regard. If the Prime Minister of Canada says to the Premier of Ontario, "We will make this work for September of 1997," we know it will happen. That is what we are waiting for him to say.
Senator Forest: With regard to the federal-provincial labour training program, I understood you to say that you do not feel that you are being offered a fair share.
Mr. Young: That is right.
Senator Forest: I know that agreements have been signed with Alberta and New Brunswick. Do you know if they feel they have received their fair share?
Mr. Young: I am not familiar with those agreements. I read a report in the newspapers this morning that an agreement was signed with Quebec as well. What we will want to do is take a good look at that agreement from various perspectives. Our first step on such an agreement must be that our citizens get equitable funding. That is our starting position. We want to take a close look at what Quebec has negotiated.
Perhaps Mr. Lizotte can respond, senator.
Mr. Louis Lizotte, Senior Policy Advisor, Post-Secondary education Policy Branch, Ontario Ministry of EDUCATION and Training: I am sorry, but I do not know any of the details, senator.
Senator Forest: Could you repeat for me the percentages you recited to us earlier in that regard?
Mr. Young: We have 36 per cent of national unemployment, 39 per cent of Canada's labour force and yet we are only offered 27 per cent of the total funding available.
Senator Andreychuk: You say you are not getting your fair share of funding. Have you been given any reasons as to why that has occurred?
Mr. Young: No, I have not.
Senator Andreychuk: What are the justifications?
Mr. Young: It must be by tradition or historical protocol. I have not been given any reasons, no.
I am sorry that the students are no longer here. Our access to post-secondary EDUCATION in Ontario is amongst the highest in North America. It is the highest in North America, depending upon how you measure it. Whatever the fees, whatever all the other conditions are, for students who graduate from high school in Ontario, it is one of the highest, if not the highest, rates in North America. The bottom line is accessibility. We know that our quality is excellent.
I spoke with one of the student leaders a couple of months back. I asked her, "When we do something wonderful, such as putting in place the Student Opportunity Trust Funds which will raise $200 million or more for students, do you think you could find it in your heart to say something positive about the government?" She answered, "No." I asked, "Why not?" to which she replied, "Because I belong to a different party from you."
The Deputy Chairman: We have heard something of this nature before.
Senator Andreychuk: There is a disparity and I am optimistic about it. I hope that the students are critical of those governments which came before yours. A healthy cynicism in young people is reassuring.
We have heard a positive spin from governments and universities about good quality EDUCATION. It is optimistic that people are still striving for that and that they see alternatives. However, how do we attack the issues? You mentioned President Clinton's wonderful, pious statements. I am looking for action.
When it comes to children and EDUCATION, all adults say that we need the best quality EDUCATION for our youth who are our future; it leads to productivity; we need change and new technologies. I think we have heard it all. You are addressing us at the end of our hearings.
From your vantage point, and bearing in mind our Constitution, do you believe that the system of EDUCATION that Canada has chosen for itself is an acceptable one and that what it needs are some changes and adaptations? Or do we need to take some drastic looks on a long-term basis?
In that regard, I look to some of the innovations and some of the drastic measures Australia took at one point in time to the whole area of study and EDUCATION. They simply said that tinkering around the edges with the existing EDUCATION system was not sufficient. Do you think we are due for a major overhaul; or do we just need a tune-up?
Mr. Young: I think we need a major tune-up. Australia started from a totally different position. Their access to Post-Secondary education was much lower, and they had free tuition. They had a long way to go. They did not have the system that we have, particularly what we have in Ontario. They did not have the great base that we have.
There are a lot of tremendous things going on in our universities. You do not want to throw the baby out with the bath water. We need a national research strategy from which we will get the best bang for our buck and in which we will have the best people working on the best things.
I am not confusing applied and basic research because both are important. However, this is a place where we need absolutely a long term-strategy. With regard to access for students to funds to be able to afford to go to university, there is no one answer. In Germany, all tuition is paid for by the government, yet only 11 per cent of students attend university. The pieces that ensure students can go to university are coming into place.
Another aspect of access to Post-Secondary education is that more parents and grandparents will start to save for Post-Secondary education when children enter Grade 1. There are a whole lot of things that are working very well right now. We want to make sure we build on what we have.
Senator Andreychuk: It is always hard to support students because the minute you hear a compelling case of need, you then hear a counter case about someone who overcame their difficulties. However, when we look at the stumbling blocks, we see that they are equal. Some parents support their children while others with the same income do not. We do not want to interfere with that.
Something that has changed is the bursary philosophy, the idea of an encouragement from a broader spectre, that we all have an investment in the future. I come from Saskatchewan where we were told that it was everyone's responsibility that our children be postated. We used our tax base for bursaries, but there was an obligation for work. If Senator Perrault were here, he would ask you if students could work off their loans? Can they work off their debt? In other words, do we need to look at this whole bursary concept in addition to scholarships; or do you think scholarships will take care of some of these things?
Mr. Young: There are lots of scholarships out there right now. Most institutions have their own bursaries. The Student Opportunity Trust Fund is a bursary program, it is not just scholarship money. The Merit Scholarship is for full-time students who are in the top 2 per cent of their class. The fund pays their tuition.
We are trying to provide a range of aid. We are looking for some tax relief for parents who save for the EDUCATION of their children, or relief for students who are saving for their own EDUCATION.
I do not know if there is any one answer to student aid. In Ontario, we are supportive of people of all ages being more accountable for their own actions and being more responsible for their future. Some young people grow up without parents or they have parents who cannot help them financially. The income-contingent loan program will give those students the option of going to university or college and paying back their loans on a monthly basis which they can afford, even if it takes 20 or 25 years. There is nothing to stop someone if they are determined and they want to work toward something of value. That is an exciting concept.
You mentioned student cynicism. I agree, it is not all unhealthy. Some university students are starting to challenge within the institutions they attend the concept of tenure. Does it make sense for the students? Could we ask for variations and changes in the way tenure works? I do not think that is unhealthy at all. It is coming from the right place. They are the ones in those institutions who trying to learn.
Senator DeWare: As you know, since Christmas, we have heard about mobility and having some national standards. There is talk about national standards for our young people, debt loads, transferability and because of cuts in your province there have been cuts in programs, class sizes have increased, and there has been downsizing in terms of some of the teachers in different programs. It has all been a little negative across the board up to this point in time. We have heard about the increase in tuition fees. Students are concerned about how they will pay back a $30,000 debt after a four-year program.
The point I wish to discuss with you concerns the transfer of EI money for training which is being done by the Department of Human Resources Development and is in conjunction with your province. The other day, we met with the banks who extend loans to students. One of their concerns involved a question of credibility for some of these start-up training programs to which people in your province want access. Does your department have control of that training package? The banks are concerned these start-up organizations that want to do the training because they think there is money available are not accredited and that they should be accredited under the provincial program. Have you any concerns about that? Can you give me any information on that?
Mr. Lizotte: Any organization that wants to deliver training has to be registered in Ontario under the Private Vocational Schools Act if it is not a public institution. Furthermore, if they want to offer student assistance to their students, there are regulations in place for governing that and there are standards to meet.
Senator DeWare: There was some concern that some of these institutions were falling by the wayside after an 18-month program. The students had committed themselves to a loan, yet they were not getting the qualified training they should be getting. The banks are concerned about that because the students are left with the loans and no certificate or diploma of any kind. Is it not your department's responsibility to look after such accreditation?
Mr. Lizotte: That is correct. If they want to get a student loan, they have to be accredited with the ministry.
Senator M. Lorne Bonnell (Chairman) in the chair.
Senator Andreychuk: The whole idea of EDUCATION is changing and expanding. Do you have any comments or insights into where you see Ontario going in what some people have called the marketing of EDUCATION overseas? Others have said that we should take advantage of a global need for an international EDUCATION. Is Ontario factoring any of that into its thinking?
Mr. Young: There are a number of changes that we are living with right now, something which we will be doing for decades to come. One of them is lifelong learning. People will be going back to colleges and universities to get more training or EDUCATION. The average graduate now will have five to ten different jobs within their working life.
The impact of technology is another point to consider. Technology is what removes the borders. Western University here in Ontario has a video MBA program. You can get a video MBA on two-way video. There is nothing to prevent colleges and universities in Ontario from doing training virtually anywhere in the world via satellite, et cetera.
We want to ensure that we build on the excellence that we have in our institutions in Ontario.
Senator Andreychuk: When we were in Vancouver, we heard some unease -- to put it diplomatically -- about the fact that Ontario universities are advertising for students in B.C. The institutions there felt that was their niche. Do you deem that kind of competition healthy; or do you think there needs to be some attention paid to it?
When I travel the world, I run into branches of American universities setting up in Malaysia or in other parts of the world. It seems that these institutions have been given encouragement in the form of tax supports to set up these kinds of operations. Has Ontario considered any of this, or has it been strictly within the university community?
Mr. Young: That is the first I have heard about it. One of the vice-presidents of Ford Motor Company is on the board of directors of Sheridan College which is in my riding. One of the other members of the board was travelling in the Far East, I believe it was in Singapore. They were asked about Sheridan because of this exciting animation program it has. We built a link there. These companies are now coming to Sheridan and consulting with them. We are taking what we are the best in the world at and providing it elsewhere. I see that as positive.
Senator Andreychuk: Is there any government move to assist universities, specifically, in doing that; or do you think that is an obligation of the universities?
Mr. Young: At this time, it is at the discretion of the universities.
Mr. Lizotte: In the context of some bilateral agreements that CIDA has with some countries, the Ontario Ministry of EDUCATION and Training has been trying to make Ontario expertise available. By and large, institutions are pursuing those with a lot of interest, as are the associations of universities. Colleges are very active in the field in many countries.
Mr. Young: I would like to give an example of an articulation agreement that exists. The hotel institute at George Brown College was looking for a partner. They wanted to provide a diploma in partnership and allow their students to get a degree in business administration at the same time. They could not find a university in Ontario to partner with them. They now have a partnership with the University of Calgary. The students can go to George Brown and get a diploma in food preparation, or whatever. They then go to the University of Calgary to obtain a degree in hotel and resort management, which is a business administration degree. It is sad that they had to go that far to get the partnership. There is a synergy there. It is a mutually beneficial thing in that institutions can learn from one another.
In terms of applied research, I asked some professors why we could not bring together the best people in the world who are studying cancer research and come up with a cure for cancer. They said, "We talk all the time. We are together on the Internet every night." So that is happening, although it is something we do not necessarily see. I see it as progressive that we can get knowledge and expertise from across the world instantaneously. I think we should share it as well.
Senator Forest: A number of people across the country have suggested to us that there needs to be a stronger federal presence in EDUCATION. We are conscious that EDUCATION is a provincial responsibility. However, there have been many suggestions and recommendations that somehow the ministers of EDUCATION should get together and that there should be national principles and guidelines in the field of EDUCATION, just as there are in the health field. This would enhance the mobility of students and accreditation all across the country. What is your response to that? Do you think it would be helpful?
Mr. Young: Articulation agreements allow students when they are in grade 8 and 9 to start planning to study at a certain college or university.
Right now, we have problems in our own institutions. The students do not know whether they will be able to transfer from one university to another. We have been encouraging our own institutions to provide students with that predictability. I can see it as being a benefit nationally as well. I do not know if there are any ongoing efforts in that regard.
Mr. Lizotte: It is interesting that you have pointed out, senator, that national standards need not necessarily be federal government standards. The efforts of the CMEC in that respect are probably what the provinces have been working on.
Senator Forest: Have the provinces been working on these guidelines among themselves?
Mr. Lizotte: That is correct.
Senator Forest: Would you see any role for the federal government as a facilitator in that area? We have heard this all across the country. We are treading very carefully in respect of provincial jurisdiction in terms of EDUCATION. I would like to have your thoughts on the matter.
Mr. Lizotte: In his opening remarks, Mr. Young described three areas in which the federal government could be more involved in terms of support for Post-Secondary education. That very concrete support would mean a lot to Ontario institutions and to Ontario students.
As far as the other areas in which activity is already occurring, one has to wonder whether it would be a duplication of services or whether it would be competition.
Senator Forest: I think the idea was that there would be some role the federal government might play in assisting the council of ministers getting on the same wavelength.
Mr. Young: I have heard nothing about that. If 10 EDUCATION ministers agree on standards, I do not know what the federal government role would be.
Senator Forest: Obviously, it would not be necessary.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: I wish to underline the two initiatives that you have taken and which seem interesting. Is yours the only province to have a student opportunity trust fund?
Mr. Young: I do not know.
Mr. Lizotte: Off the top of my head, I do not know either.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: I think there are other places which have something similar to your Ontario Merit Scholarships.
Do you keep any statistics on university or post-secondary students who drop out?
Mr. Young: I believe they are available.
Mr. Lizotte: Those statistics are very difficult because we do not have centralized information systems. Some topical studies have been made. There is data about that and efforts are being taken to try to get a clear picture.
There is a project in the works to create a unique student identifier number which would be helpful. For example, we have no way of keeping track of someone who drops out of one university to go to another one, or to go to a college. A unique student identifier number would facilitate keeping track of these students.
Mr. Young: Are you concerned that students are dropping out because they cannot afford to stay in university?
Senator Lavoie-Roux: That is one reason. I am wondering whether you have identified other reasons.
Mr. Young: It is an extremely difficult thing to measure. When I was in university, I remember fellow students saying that they had run out of money or could not get a summer job. That is always a possibility. When unemployment goes up in Ontario, registration at universities automatically goes down. When unemployment was going up in the early 1990s, our universities were chock-full of students. Many times students will leave a college or university simply because they got a good and exciting job.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: At the post-secondary level, do you have any idea of the percentage of students who have to work concurrently while studying?
Mr. Young: I received a report from York University which is my alma mater. At York University, it is higher than, perhaps, some of the other institutions. I think 30 per cent of the students are working during the school year, as well as during the summer.
York University has a high percentage of students whose parents did not receive Post-Secondary education and who are unable to help finance their children's attendance. They have a somewhat unique student body there. They had a higher percentage of students working during the week, which is a real concern.
Our three children are aged 14, 12 and 10. We want to be able to help them. I do not mind if they work during the summer. I think that will be good for them. I am concerned that they do not have to work during the week. We are trying to save towards that now, but it is a very real concern.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: My second question concerns French Post-Secondary education in Ontario. I know it is a touchy subject to talk about in Ontario right now, but you have L'Université Laurentienne, L'Université d'Ottawa and another one. How many French universities do you have?
Mr. Young: There are French programs of study at most of our universities; as well, French programs are available. Two of my girls are in French immersion half days. They will be studying French right through. Perhaps Mr. Lizotte has the exact number.
Mr. Lizotte: Perhaps Hearst College is the only one which teaches entirely in French. Others are bilingual universities offering programs in French. The largest number of students enrolled in French-language programs is at the University of Ottawa. The second largest is Laurentienne, followed by Glendon College which is part of York University.
We have three French-language colleges which were created by the provincial government in recent years. They are La Cité Collégiale, Collège Boréal and Collège des Grands Lacs. They are at the community college level.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Are they facilities put at the disposal of French-speaking people who want to further their studies in French? Do they sufficiently answer the needs?
Mr. Lizotte: Very much so. As a matter of fact, since their creation, there has been a big expansion of services in French in the last several years in Ontario, which corresponds to increased provincial government funding for the creation of new programs at universities and bilingual universities, along with the creation of three French language colleges.
Mr. Young: If you have not visited La Cité Collégiale, it is a treat. It is right here in Ottawa. It is a wonderful school.
Senator Forest: Is it a liberal arts college?
Mr. Lizotte: It is a college of applied arts and technology offering vocational programs ranging in various lengths from one to three years.
The Chairman: I want to thank you, Mr. Young, and your senior policy advisor on your excellent presentation.
We now have appearing before us Dr. David Smith, Ph.D., from the Ontario Advisory Panel on Higher EDUCATION.
Dr. Smith, we would like to turn the floor over to you for your comments.
Dr. David Smith, Ph.D., Principal Emeritus, Queen's University, Ontario Advisory Panel on Higher EDUCATION: Mr. Chairman, it is a great pleasure to be here today. Since last summer, when the panel on Future Directions for Post-Secondary education was established in Ontario, I have felt that we were bound to cross paths, and here we are with you at the end of your proceedings. We are finally together.
As I heard a few minutes ago, you feel in some sense that you have heard it all now because you are at the end of your hearings. I am sure that all the main issues have been covered.
I would welcome very much the opportunity to have a discussion with you and have you raise questions that are bothering you at this stage. I understand you have received copies of the panel's report, the first 14 pages of which contains our summary and recommendations.
With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I should like to spend about 10 minutes on what I feel are the five forces that are combining to effect profoundly the Post-Secondary education sector and the need that those combined forces are producing to have a combination of policies to respond. That combination must somehow draw on the shared responsibilities in society for the strength of the Post-Secondary education sector.
The five which I see as fundamentally and profoundly changing the post-secondary EDUCATION sector include the long-term rposttion in the degree of government financial support. As part of the constraint and the change in the way we have been viewing the public sector in recent years, the Post-Secondary education sector is expected to get along with relatively fewer government resources. The result of that has been a great deal of restructuring, a great deal of rethinking of how best to use the resources that are available in universities. In our consultations right across the province of Ontario last fall, we found some very major changes have been occurring.
At the same time, that change in the public sector has meant that there are competitive pressures building up from those Post-Secondary education systems with which Ontario competes, particularly with respect to the United States. Because our systems of data collection, unfortunately, are too imperfect in this area, we heard much anecdotal evidence about the difficulties of retaining some of our best researchers, scholars and teachers and hiring them to fill research teaching positions. This was a sign that there is difficulty in competing at least with the present way the resources are being used.
In turn, that will lead to a much more careful assessment of what is the priority for the Post-Secondary education sector. We do not have mechanisms for analyzing that question profoundly. We badly need studies of what priorities should be placed on our universities and colleges in the allocation of public resources.
The U.S. is rich in institutes and research organizations that study this sector. Canada is very weak in this regard. One would like to see coming out of this at least a much more careful assessment of the priorities.
The second force profoundly changing the Post-Secondary education sector is that students are now expected to carry a higher proportion of the costs of their higher EDUCATION through tuition fees, which have been rising relatively quickly. That immediately raises the issue of reform of the student assistance program so that we can support students who do not have the means to meet those higher tuition costs.
The panel favoured a carefully structured income-contingent loan repayment plan, or ICLRP, as a major component of a broader student assistance plan. There are many forms of ICLRPs. We did not try to work out the details, although we did point to some elements of such a plan that we think would be very important. The principle is a good one. We strongly recommended that action be taken on it.
In addition, we argued that there should be many sources of student assistance, that this is an area that benefits from having a variety of sources which can better address some of the particular needs for student assistance. We emphasized improving RESPs, Registered EDUCATIONal Saving Plans, bringing them closer to RRSPs. We argued that in principle at least there should be interest dposttibility for borrowing for university EDUCATION, just as you can borrow for investment in business equipment, although we realize there are administrative problems in dealing with that.
We were in favour of the Student Opportunity Trust Fund which gives universities a greater opportunity to help students which they can determine are in much need. Out of this change in student fees, we are seeing a very major shift that is occurring in the form of student assistance. However, it is something which needs to be encouraged greatly in the next little while.
The third force is that a greater contribution is being made from the private sector. For Post-Secondary education, the amount which the private sector is likely to contribute is limited. In the case of the United States in terms of private support, on closer examination one sees that you can count on this area being a large source of funding. The top universities in the United States, institutions such as Harvard, MIT, et cetera, rely very much on government grants, particularly in support of their research. The relative contribution of private sources, though higher there, is still limited. For obvious reasons, Canada is not as well placed to provide the sources through large private foundation grants and so forth.
We are seeing an increase in private partnerships in research, which provide some additional research funds, as well as an interesting mechanism for a second check on quality. The message here, however, is that through a variety of means, the private sector will play a greater role, but we should not exaggerate the volume of funding that will come from this source.
The fourth major force for change is the growth in demand for research. With the development of so-called new growth theory, with the evidence of the importance of knowledge and the expansion of the prosperity of a country, there is a growing interest in having our universities in particular carry out more research activity. In addition to conducting just research, there is the expectation that universities will provide researchers who are trained for the future. Thus, the universities will be the source of the researchers of the future.
In this regard, I would like to emphasize especially the importance of the three federal granting councils for the work of research in the universities. They have been extraordinarily important over time. They have brought standards of quality to the allocation of the scarce resources. They have provided important support for both basic and applied research.
If one considers the period from 1983-84 through to 1988-89, one sees that over that five-year period there has been a 25-per-cent rposttion in real terms for the granting councils, just at a time when the demands for research from our universities has increased and the needs to have more training of researchers for the future. That is terribly unfortunate.
I welcome, of course, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, which is a wonderful initiative. It has stirred optimism in much of the university community that, perhaps, things are turning around and that this is an example of greater support which will increase even more in the future in other directions.
The final major force that is effecting the change in the universities is the pressures to be more open to the international flow of ideas and to meeting international standards of quality. The term "university" comes from the word universitas. Indeed, a university must be open to international influences.
In the opening of commercial borders, the flow of ideas has become even more pronounced. It is even more important that Canada be placed in a good position to be part of that flow of international ideas. Our universities must be in a strong position to take advantage of the quality standards at the international level that are emerging ever more strongly. In a somewhat weakened condition from the resource standpoint, they are struggling to do that.
Those are the five points that I wish to emphasize. I am pleased to talk about any matters related to my report or generally.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for your report. I know you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject of Post-Secondary education. You have heard all kinds of stories and you have come up with a report which we will read with a great deal of interest. Just to be able to come up with a report is a good thing. Having heard so much, we are a little scared that if we say something we will get the provinces upset. If we say something else, the federal government will be upset. If we say something else, the universities will be upset. It is a tricky spot, but we will take the bull by the horns. They cannot vote against us. We will say what we want to say.
Mr Smith: It will not be much of a report if you do not upset some people.
The Chairman: Would you take a moment and tell me your thoughts on co-op EDUCATION.
Mr. Smith: Yes, it is a very important initiative led in particular by the University of Waterloo. Both from the student standpoint and from the business standpoint it has worked well. From what I understand, some businesses are feeling it cannot be extended too far. There are limits to the extent that one would adopt co-op programs.
There is some danger of classifying them a little too strictly. There are various kinds of other ways of involving students in some experience, that is, during the summer or another part of the year. These alternatives have been around for a long time. Thus, giving students the opportunity to get some valuable experience can be done without the alternating year that exists in the formal co-op program. Generally, what I hear about it is very good.
The Chairman: What do you think about the promotion of international students, both the foreign students coming to Canada and Canadian students going abroad to be postated?
Mr. Smith: It is very important. It is extraordinarily important for Canada that we draw a large number of students from other countries. It helps our students in understanding better the cultures of other nations and the various ideas that they then come to understand better. It is very important economically for the country that people who gain their EDUCATION here go back with a better understanding of some of the goods and services which, when they are in positions of some responsibility in their countries, they will, perhaps, be able to influence.
Having Canadians go abroad gives them an opportunity to experience other cultures, other social arrangements. There is the ability to have a quite different intellectual experience in some of these foreign institutions. I think they come back enriched with those perspectives. They are able to help explain to their friends some of the ideas from other countries.
I believe very strongly that Canada benefits from an active international exchange of students.
The Chairman: Where do you feel we should be going with distance EDUCATION?
Mr. Smith: It is continuing to develop very strongly with the new technologies. I heard Terence Young referring to the situation at Western where they communicate by video to Vancouver. The university with which I am associated has beamed lectures to the Northwest Territories and various other parts of Canada. It is very exciting, particularly with the vast distances in Canada and the costs of transportation, that these techniques are developing.
Even more could be done. I was very influenced when the panel had its consultations in Thunder Bay. A very able aboriginal student spoke to us about her community along the shores of Hudson Bay and that the technology had not been developed to the point where they could access the forms of communication needed for distance EDUCATION. A satellite or some other kind of new technology would be needed. There are people in her community, and in many communities in that area, who could benefit from being able to tap into the distance EDUCATION programs. As I listened to her, I saw that she was flourishing with the intellectual challenges and the development of her interests in a wide range of knowledge. I saw that as an area of investment which could bring about an important return to many communities.
In answer to your question, distance EDUCATION is growing. There are new technologies. One must recognize that some of these new technologies are quite expensive. It is not quite the cost saving that many people thought it would be. Down the road that may change.
Senator Forest: Dr. Smith, I am very concerned with the financing of EDUCATION. I was at the universities in Alberta during the good years during the 1970s and the 1980s when we had lots of money. I am discouraged to see what is happening. I realize governments are under constraints. You talked about a greater contribution from the private sector. You said there is a limit to that contribution, and I agree with that. However, would you say that we are developing as a culture? We are a young country and it seems to me that we are developing a culture.
The University of Alberta started a campaign to raise $150 million, a figure which many people thought was out of sight. However, some of the faculties have already surpassed their goals. Do you think there is hope that we are developing a culture? In the west, we are even newer than here in the east where there are institutions of longer standing.
Mr. Smith: I think we are. It is growing. You cited the University of Alberta's target for its new campaign. If you consider the campaign targets for the major universities in the last few years and compare them with what they were 15 to 20 years ago, you will see that there has been a dramatic change. Thus, there is some growth in the ability to raise private funds. It is still nowhere near what U.S. universities can meet.
The tax changes are important in terms of that difference. The word "culture" is the proper word to use. One wants to make sure that your university is supported in a way that will make it even better. That kind of thinking has not permeated in Canada to the same extent as it has elsewhere. It is coming. I am not sure how far we can go.
Senator Forest: We heard a great deal this morning -- as we did all across Canada -- about the need for university EDUCATION and job training and job creation, et cetera. Certainly, in the age of technology and science, people need many of these skills. I am a little bit concerned, though -- and fund raising has something to do with this, too -- that not enough attention is being paid to the arts and the humanities, areas of great importance as far as I am concerned. Have you any ideas about that?
Mr. Smith: Yes. Again, I agree with you. We are in a time when science and technology -- which really stands for research in the applied natural and physical sciences -- have captured the attention of the public more than the social sciences and the humanities. That is reflected in the relative size of grants through the granting council. They are clearly adjusted for the more expensive equipment necessary for the sciences.
There is an argument that you could include some things in the sciences and the humanities, although it is not clear that that is what they wish to emphasize. It did not figure prominently in the announcements concerning the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
There is a view that some of the scholarship and research that goes on in the humanities and the social sciences are flippant, not very serious. The public becomes upset that anything so silly could be supported, which tends to turn the public off. That is true in the United States and England. One has to be very careful in trying to explain publicly why it is so important that we have people researching very seriously some of the key issues in our society, ethical issues and others. I have a worry that we are undervaluing that side of it.
Senator DeWare: Senator Andreychuk asked me to convey her apologies to you for not being here to hear your remarks. She had to give a speech in the Senate.
We had before us representatives of one of the research councils. They were concerned that some people do not understand that ordinary research takes a long time. When you put somebody in to develop a research package, it is not something that you can say is a three-year program. They were concerned about the cutbacks. They were concerned that we were losing young Ph.D. students because there are not positions for them at this time, even though these young people would like to work in Canada.
Did your studies show that we are losing some good research people and that we should be able to have them work in our country?
Mr. Smith: There are many cases drawn to our attention. There is no statistical agency that is working on collecting the data that should be collected in this regard. At the time of the brain drain a couple of decades ago in Canada, there was some data collected which showed the flow of Canadians abroad. We have not kept that data up to date. I think we should have better data. However, I think the evidence is very clear.
I know some of the cases. There is not the support necessary for them to carry out their research activity. They can get it elsewhere. We are losing people not just to the United States, but we are losing people even to England. We always thought that Canada would draw from England. We had some advantages in terms of the research infrastructure. That is no longer true. We are losing people because of that.
On the compensation side, the public is concerned that somehow professors are overpaid and lazy. I know of some cases where we have lost some very good people because we are not competing with the best scholars in the market in the United States.
Senator DeWare: That was brought to our attention this morning by the President of the Council of Ontario Universities who said that even though there was a space available and they were trying to hire, the people they wanted to hire would not come because they felt that because of our cutbacks in funding the program would not be viable for the long term.
Mr. Smith: The head of a department at a university with whom I spoke recently said he is trying to hire. He told me that the difference in salary between what his university could pay and what this person would receive in the United States is approximately 20 per cent. As well, the people he was trying to hire in the new junior market would have a major start-up grant from the United States. As well, he mentioned the uncertainty about where Canada is going.
Young people making up their minds as to where they want to locate are seized with the desire to do well in their research and to establish their names. They want reasonable compensation for starting a family, et cetera; but they also want the long-term feeling that they are part of a dynamic growth in higher EDUCATION. There are worries about that now.
Senator DeWare: I suppose you did not get any answers as to what to do with the higher costs of students loans, student EDUCATION and so on. I think you said a carefully structured income assistant plan needs to be put in place. RESPs will not help the students who are going to school today. They will help to postate children in the future in this country.
Mr. Smith: What came up in the panel's discussions is that while you want to make sure that young people who do not have the families to support them get other forms of support, there is a case for strengthening incentives for families to support their children through university. That support is much stronger in the United States. There is a feeling of responsibility. Canada has let that feeling slip. I think the RESP approach might help.
Senator DeWare: Do you agree with some of the tax dposttion principles put forward by the American president, that is, $10,000 per family, or $1,200 to get them into the system?
Mr. Smith: That might help. It should be compared with the costs of helping in other ways. Sometimes those schemes are more costly and they could be done as well differently. I want to think about it further.
Senator DeWare: It could be done through an interest rate dposttion to the students themselves.
Mr. Smith: Yes.
The Chairman: Different students with whom we have had discussions have told us that these researchers who are attached to universities are good as researchers but that they are not the best teachers. Is it a fact that some researchers are good researchers but do not have a real interest in teaching?
Mr. Smith: All teachers, if they are to be any good at the university level, must be active in research, and must be active in a certain type of research. They do not need to be active on the frontier of basic and applied research, but they need to be active in what I call interpretive research, or what others call reflective inquiry.
You must be working on the forefront of knowledge. You must be working on the body of knowledge to understand what the latest developments are if you are going to be a good teacher in a university classroom. There is a lot of hard work there. You must be very serious about it. Clearly, to me, that is research.
As far as being on the frontier of exploratory research, both basic and applied, some people who are doing that may not be terribly good teachers pedagogically, and some who are not on that frontier may be superb pedagogically. If you are talking about graduate students in some of the senior undergraduate courses, you have to have teachers who are working on the frontier of exploratory work, both basic and applied. You must work at getting them to be better teachers pedagogically. It is critical that they be able to do that if they are going to be teaching students how to do that kind of fundamental research. They must be able to do it.
You should still be very tough on teaching. I am not excusing those who are pedagogically rather weak. My sense is that universities have come quite a distance in terms of the evaluation of courses being more standard and there being more explicit recognition of advancement which depends on that. I am sure there are still some great weaknesses there.
I would divide up those kinds of research and say that every professor does not have to fit into one single mould. You want a mixture of those various kinds of strength.
The Chairman: Could you give me your thoughts on tenure and your thoughts about young students who would like to get into university to teach but cannot because of professors being tenured?
Mr. Smith: The panel considered tenure. We had some very good discussions about it. We had some of the students from the Ontario Undergraduate Student Association, OUSA, speak to us. They commissioned a study of tenure which concluded that tenure should be preserved but that there should be a careful scrutiny of performance. They concluded that, in effect, there should be a set of contracts, particularly later in one's career, that would make it clear that you had to be reviewed seriously as to how well you were performing on the teaching side but that one's tenure would be preserved. That was a very interesting outcome for quite a large number of students.
The panel itself came down in favour of retaining tenure. We reached the conclusion that if Ontario were to go it alone and banish tenure, when all the other university systems with which we compete have tenure, it would be very costly to hire a professor or to keep a professor in Ontario. There would be a premium to pay for not having tenure.
I will not speak for the other panel members. I feel that tenure is an important thing in a university. It gives recognition to the fact that we are dealing with ideas in a university. We trade in ideas. There should not be any condition that if you enunciate an unpopular idea you could be fired. It is a very different kind of business from other businesses. You are trading in ideas. You do not want to have some declared as grounds for dismissal.
Having been head of a university for some years, I know that if there had been abolition of tenure, I might have been tempted, on occasion, to exert my administrative power to ease my life in certain areas. I often thought to myself, it is a good thing I do not have that because I might be tempted, whereas it would be quite inconsistent with what the university is all about.
I emerged from that feeling even more strongly that it is a good thing.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: I can see your point. On the other hand, with these untouchables, are you sure that you are protecting the quality of EDUCATION for the students?
Mr. Smith: You can touch a professor in a great many ways. I headed a department of economics for 13 years and I was the principal for 10 years. I was quite aware of the enormous amount of evaluation a professor goes through. It happens every time you stand in front of a class, every time the course is evaluated. Those course evaluations go to the instructor. They go from the head of the department to the dean. In the case of Queen's, they came to me personally. I would go through them. I do not know of any occupation where you are evaluated so formally and frequently as in a university.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Do you mean all universities or just your university?
Mr. Smith: I think it is similar elsewhere. I agree not all take it quite as seriously.
There are the instruments of whether to adjust the compensation, give the promotion, or go in and have a chat with the professor.
Most people want to be regarded as good teachers. It is quite devastating to go into a professor's office and sit down with the results of a course evaluation and say, "There seems to be a problem in this." It is traumatic for them. Thus, we have set up ways to assist instructors to teach better. They have been very appreciative because I think most would like to teach well. Some have not been well instructed in how to do that. That is what you should work on.
Our report made it clear that governing boards should take a great interest in this area. They should be concerned that there are in place very clear procedures for evaluating performance and for corrective measures to be taken, if performance is less than adequate.
The Chairman: Thank you, Dr. Smith, for an excellent report. You answered some very important questions for us.
The committee adjourned.