Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs, Science and Technology
Issue 7 - Evidence - October 8, 2009
OTTAWA, Thursday, October 8, 2009
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met this day at 10:46 a.m. to study the accessibility of post-secondary education in Canada.
Senator Art Eggleton (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology.
[English]
Today is our second meeting on post-secondary education in Canada. The topic for today is entitled: A portrait of who attends PSE in Canada and who does not; the determinants of post-secondary participation.
I welcome Senator Dawson, who is substituting for Senator Munson. Everyone else is a regular member.
Each witness has a deck. We received the decks recently and they have not been translated. They are not on the table, but if senators wish, we could use them as a guide. The rule is that we are supposed to have the material in both official languages, but we will not have it in both languages by the end of the meeting.
Senator Segal: My preference would be that if it is not in our two official languages, it should not be on the table.
The Chair: Does anyone disagree with that? Okay, we will leave it at that.
We have three witnesses today from Statistics Canada. We have Marc Frenette, from the Social Analysis Division. He is a research economist with that division at Statistics Canada. He has published several articles in peer-reviewed, academic journals in Canada, the United States and Europe. His work in education is focused primarily on post- secondary access, with particular emphasis on its many potential barriers. Obviously, this is very apropos to our subject.
Richard E. Mueller has written and spoken widely on the state of post-secondary education in Canada. He is also from Statistics Canada by way of Lethbridge University.
We also welcome Ross Finnie, who has been an associate professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa since 2007. His current research interests include various topics in labour, post-secondary education and public economics, all with an applied and/or policy focus.
There is also a book in which all three witnesses are involved; committee members will have some reading material for next week's break week.
Marc Frenette, Analyst, Social Analysis Division, Statistics Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee for inviting us to speak on post-secondary access. I will be discussing the financial dimensions of PSE access in Canada and my colleague Mr. Mueller will discuss other dimensions. Mr. Finnie will then have his own wrap-up of various issues as well.
What do we know about the financial dimensions of post-secondary access? We know that university attendance rises with parental income. If we take a sample of recent high school graduates and we divide them into four income classes, top, bottom, and then the two middle classes, we find that those at the very top, based on their parental income, have a 50 per cent chance of going to university.
If we look at those at the very bottom income class, only about 31 per cent of them attend university within two years of graduating high school. It might be tempting to conclude that the reason why low-income youth are less likely to go to university is because they cannot secure enough finances to pay their way through university. However, after careful study of that issue it was found that financial constraint was not the main reason for the gap in university attendance between those at the top and those at the bottom of the income list.
In that study, students were asked if their financial situation prevented them from attending university. Although some students did say that was the case — it was a small number, about 10 per cent for the entire sample. Once we studied this carefully, only 12 per cent of the university access gap between those at the top of the income distribution and those at the bottom was related to the fact that those at the bottom faced more financial constraints than those at the top. This is based on student responses.
In contrast, 76 per cent of that gap was actually related to the fact that lower income youth had lower academic performance than those in the top of the income distribution, and they had less educated parents than those at the top of the income distribution for obvious reasons. Those two have been shown to be strong correlates of university attendance, a topic on which my colleagues will expand. They are also students who have had lower expectations placed on upon them by their parents. Financial constraint is a factor but not the main factor behind that gap.
Does money matter for university access? This study showed that money does not prevent most students from attending university in the sense of securing their finances, again according to students. However, there are three important caveats to keep in mind.
First, while most students were not prevented from going to university because of their financial situation, some groups of students may have been prevented from doing so. This issue was not studied in that particular paper; it is something we could look at in the near future.
Second, these findings are conditional on the state of the world as it stands today: That is, the level of financial support available to students, from their parents and government or non-government sources. However, if we reduce student aid — and this is based on studies from the U.S. and Europe — that may introduce new credit constraints that were not previously there. Susan Dynarski in the U.S. has linked student aid to university attendance; that is, changes to the level of student aid available to students. Similar studies in Europe have found similar results, although smaller effects in Europe compared to the U.S.
A third caveat is that academic performance may depend on money. We do not have strong evidence of this in Canada, unfortunately, but we know from the Canadian Council on Learning that household income is the strongest predictor for hiring a tutor in Canada. It is possible that the extra money that the higher-income parents have will actually help bolster academic performance in the early years for those children.
How do we compare to the U.S. on this dimension of university access by parental income? If we repeat the exercise, grouping students into four income classes, we find that the university access gap across the income distribution is narrow in Canada compared to the U.S. The reasons for that gap are not well understood, although a U.S. study suggested that, while student aid is widely available in the U.S. in terms of the total amount available, the systems are complex. There is a real possibility that many students are not aware of the amount of aid available to them, as suggested by those authors.
What do we not know about financial constraints, in terms of university access? First, as I mentioned earlier, we do not know who faces those financial constraints. We could look into this. Second, we do not know why academic performance is weaker among lower-income youth. That is critical, given that academic performance is an important correlate of university attendance. Third, in Canada, we have seen rising tuition fees over the last couple of decades. However, as tuition fees have increased, because of the structure of the student financial aid system, which is a direct function of student needs, then student aid has increased. As a result, student debt increases.
Another aspect that we do not know is what are the implications of that rising debt? We do have some answers to that from the U.S. Some studies have looked at the impact of rising debt on the implications for students following university graduation. Those studies have found that with higher debts, students have reduced odds of marriage and home ownership, and it affects their job search.
Up to this point, I have not said anything about college access and the financial dimensions related to it. The reason for that is that there is no in-depth work on that issue in Canada right now. One of the possible reasons is that when people start looking at this issue, the relationship between income and college attendance is not as strong as it is between income and university attendance. Again, it is something we could look at as well.
Richard E. Mueller, Visiting Fellow, Social Analysis Division, Statistics Canada: Thank you for the invitation. I hope I can contribute in a constructive way to your deliberations in this committee.
My colleague Mr. Frenette just discussed some of the financial aspects. My task is to discuss some of the non- financial factors behind accessing a particular post-secondary education in Canada.
First is family background. We already heard that parental education seems to be more important. In fact, I have on my slides that parental education trumps income. That is not to say that financial factors or parental income are not important, simply — as we used to joke about when we were writing some of our papers — if you wanted to go to university and you had the choice to have a well-educated parent or a high-income parent, you had better choose the well-educated parent. You do not have that choice, but that is how academics have fun. It works for us.
Another thing is parental aspirations. Mr. Frenette alluded to this a moment ago. We find in our research that if parents aspire for their children to go to university or college, they are more likely to go there, especially university, which is the main focus of most of our research. This is hardly definitive. We might think parents have a good idea what their kids are like at a fairly young age, and, by the age of 15 years when our subjects are surveyed, they might have a good deal whether or not they are university material. Parental aspirations will be determined by the nature of the child, so keep that in mind as well. They are important, we suspect.
Two-parent families are important. Coming from a two-parent family, you are more likely to go to post-secondary education, especially university. It does not matter if those two parents are your biological parents, either. At least, I have seen one paper to that effect. You can have adoptive parents. One of the things on a research agenda is to try to disentangle some of these effects to see if we have different family types and what influences they might have on post- secondary education.
Another category is academic preparation. Students are different; we know that. If you have ever taught at university or any other level, you know there is a great deal of heterogeneity amongst students. They will all be different. One thing we found that enhances the chances of these people attending university is what we call in our data academic ``engagement.'' This means things that your mother taught you to do. You attend high school classes; you do your homework; you work hard; you do all that kind of stuff. We have a great deal of heterogeneity amongst students so we cannot say, ``Little Johnny, if you work harder you will go to university,'' because Johnny may not be interested. We will probably see that the kids who are more interested or more academically inclined are the ones who will do their homework and work harder in the first place. Again, we are somewhat tentative about that relationship; at least I am.
Reading ability is hugely important. Obviously, good high school grades, again, following the advice that your parents probably gave you, as they certainly gave me, are a hugely important determinant. We do find that the effects of many of these academic variables, such as the effect of parental education I just discussed, will be reduced once we consider these sorts of academic preparation variables. In other words, maybe parental education is working in order to enhance some of these other characteristics — hard work, aptitude, et cetera — that might be so important in determining whether or not a young person goes to post-secondary education.
Another factor is personal characteristic. This is a relatively new avenue of research. I should have prefaced my remarks with this in the first place. You have the book that Senator Eggleton showed. The three of us, along with another colleague, are working on the second related volume to that, which will be available hopefully in December. That is our target date. Certainly, if it would please the committee, we would be happy to provide copies to you.
What I am presenting here is a synthesis of all the non-financial results contained in the book you have and also the upcoming book, at least as it stands today.
We know that the general state of health is important for young people. The self-reported state of health is important for young people and whether or not they go on to PSE.
Hyperactivity is certainly important for boys. Hyperactive boys are less likely to ultimately attend PSE. Also, aggressive behaviour does not lead to PSE, but only for girls. This is preliminary research, but it is interesting that these behaviours of hyperactivity and aggressive behaviour are important.
Another thing I found interesting personally, having children in school, is that self-esteem is not too terribly important. Having young people with self-esteem is not the most important thing. There is another factor called self- efficacy, which measures the confidence in a person's ability to perform well at school. That is a more important determinant of whether they go on to PSE than just having self-esteem, which is a broader kind of measure of a favourable attitude towards oneself. I thought that was interesting given my experiences with the education system. It might also be useful for the committee.
There are certain geographical factors. We can look at provincial differences and also urban-rural differences. As far as the provinces go, Atlantic Canada tends to have very high university participation rates. I hate to say it but Alberta, as well as British Columbia, has relatively low participation rates. There are some reasons for this that I might get to in a moment.
There is a bit of an urban-rural divide in Canada. The rural-urban divide does not seem to show up so much, certainly not at all in college attendance, but it does for university attendance. That is not to imply that if you live in a rural area you will not go to a university, or if you live in an urban area you are destined to go to university. There may be other factors again, as in many of these data at play, and in particular the distance to a university or college could be hugely important. Many rural areas surround urban areas and therefore are close to a university, whereas even if you are in an urban area your commute to the nearest educational institution could be significant.
Another factor, gender differences, comes out strongly in the data. Usually we see females having much higher university attendance rates. Again, this has much to do with some of the factors we discussed a moment ago, such as better high school grades and reading ability. Often they have better study habits than young boys, which, as a father of three young boys, I do not find surprising.
Many times, and this is curious, parental aspirations can be higher for girls than for boys. Again, this might be due to the nature of the relationship the young person has; parents have more faith in their young daughters going on to university than their sons and therefore their aspirations for the children might be different.
Also, we see evidence of higher returns to university for young women. Of course, you will not invest in a university education unless you expect a reasonable rate of return, among other factors, so insofar as the rate of return for this education is higher for young women than men, there is an incentive for them to attend university.
Another thing we found in our research is the role of immigration. Professor Finnie looked at first and second generation immigrants and their propensity to attend post-secondary education in Canada. We find both first and second generations have much higher participation rates, especially at university, compared to third generation or above, which are Canadian-born children to Canadian-born parents. Both first and second generations have very high participation rates, especially at university, and this is especially so, amazingly so, amongst the Chinese, both first and second generation, as well as some other regions of origin. We are still trying to figure out why exactly that is. We are starting to move into some of the softer explanations for some of these phenomena. One of the softer explanations for the reasons immigrants attend in such great numbers has to do with culture. We are still investigating some of those reasons.
Other factors that might come into play include macroeconomic conditions. Recently we edited a paper on the Alberta oil boom, which has now become a bust. The authors found that these oil-boom effects, what they call ``resource shock effects,'' in terms of attending PSE, are not only short term. In a place like Alberta, everyone knows that young people might go up North and work in the oil and gas extraction business rather than go to university, but more important, the longer-term effects are also felt.
I should point out that the demand for PSE, at least at colleges and universities, not trades, tends to be counter- cyclical. We see that now, if you have been following this in the media, almost every university or college talks about an increase in applications and possibility enrolments for the fall 2009 semester. That is attributed to the state of the economy. Your opportunity cost of going back to university is less when the job market is poor. If you are young and unskilled, that is especially so for you.
I have a few caveats I want to mention. I have been talking about access to post-secondary education and university in particular. Persistence is another thing. Getting them in the door is one thing; getting them out is another thing. In the literature, we call this ``persistence.'' This is hugely important. The research points to the same factors that are responsible for persistence being responsible for access.
There are a few other things we do not know much about. I just told you what we do know. We do not really know too much about supply side factors. We are talking about demand side here; in other words, young people demanding post-secondary education. The seats for these people to sit in have to be provided. That is a supply side issue. We really do not understand that much about it right now. How institutions make their decisions is an important area for future research.
We know next to nothing about apprenticeships. We are doing a project now on apprentices. It has not been done until now, even though there is much concern in the media and certainly amongst industry groups about the lack of apprentices that could be a problem.
Regarding post-graduation transitions, what happens to these young people when they graduate? Do they go into the labour market or into professional or graduate schools?
We have based our debate on the assumption that more post-secondary education, especially university, is often a desirable outcome, which is a one-size-fits-all model. We might want to question that assumption. I do not think it is necessarily good in the context that we might need more apprentices, and so on. We want to take a holistic view and say that PSE is important, but there are different types of PSE. Let us not concentrate only on universities and colleges but also look at it in its totality and consider the best use of our resources and how to train the young people for tomorrow in the best way possible.
[Translation]
Ross Finnie, Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa: I will be making my presentation in English, but I will be happy to field questions in French as well as in English.
[English]
The presentations have been excellent. Much of this work is based on the book you have, which is a collection of authors and is an ongoing project that we are hoping to keep going forward.
I suggest you flip through the book, in particular, the introduction. I am a co-author of it, and I think it gives a nice overview of the questions, the issues, where we are in terms of the evidence, the remaining policy issues, and where research needs to go down the road.
Much of it exploits this wonderful data set, called the Canadian Youth in Transition Survey. There is no data like it in the world. Statistics Canada and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada invested in these data some years ago, and we are now getting the benefits of that investment, namely, the construction of that excellent data. We are fortunate to have those data, which illuminate many of the items that are important to this committee and our society.
It is a wonderful thing to do research on post-secondary education because it has two motivating factors. First, post- secondary education is a life changing experience for many individuals. Most of us know that ourselves. It is important to individuals, but it is also fundamental to the future prosperity of the country. If we do not get post-secondary education right, the economy will not move ahead. We will not be able to compete globally and will fall behind.
There are two fundamental issues related to access. First, if we want to increase access to or participation in post- secondary education overall, we must understand the factors that determine who has access and who participates. More important, if we want to level the playing field, so that it is an issue of equity, how do we ensure there are no disadvantaged groups? For those groups that are currently disadvantaged, what can we do so that every Canadian who has the ability and desire to go to post-secondary education has the opportunity to do so? There is nothing more important on the economy's agenda.
Related to equal opportunity, as Canadians, we do not want opportunity to pursue post-secondary education to be determined by how much money your family has. Money should not be a barrier. We now understand from the papers in this book, in the next volume and in others that it is not just about money. Background is related to other factors related to motivation and preparation for post-secondary education.
The terminology is not good. We talk about ``barriers to post-secondary education,'' but the phrasing of that term suggests that there is a group of people who would like to go, are able to go but something gets in their way. Money is the thing we like to turn to. A lot of the policy focus over the last 10 years or 20 years has been on wanting to eliminate that barrier, if it exists. That is fair, but it has focused our attention on financial factors, in particular, the student financial aid system and tuition. Those are fundamentally important, and we must ensure that financial barriers do not get in the way. However, we are now learning that the notion of ``barriers'' needs to be replaced with the notion of the determinants of post-secondary education. It is not just a factor of people wanting to go, being able to go, having the motivation and requirements to go but not being able to go. The motivation, desire and preparation to go are just as important. We cannot just focus policy on ensuring that the student financial aid system and tuition fees and so forth are in place so that a young person who wants to go to university will be able to afford it. We understand increasingly that we need to get at young people early on in life because the determinants of who goes to post-secondary education is fundamentally related to a person's background, and that preparation and that orientation must start early.
I keep coming back to the book. There is one sentence in the conclusion of the introduction on page 27 that sums it up. It says:
First and foremost, access is clearly the outcome of a detailed, complex, interrelated set of factors that begins to operate early in a young person's life and depends heavily on family background and early schooling experiences.
That is not to say because it is in the family and it starts early, we cannot do anything about it. We can; at least, we believe we can. However, we need to better understand what we can do from a policy perspective.
I will not go into details, but, for example, parental education trumps income. That is just one of many examples.
Regarding our study on post-secondary education, I could not believe it when someone called me on Sunday morning and said, ``You are on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen this week.'' We even trumped the Prime Minister's playing at the NAC. It is not quite a war ends in Europe headline, but it is a remarkable thing. There is interest in post- secondary education, but the particular interest here is that the children of immigrants, for example, a disadvantaged group in many ways, financially for example, attend post-secondary institutions in extremely high numbers. Why is that? It demonstrates that they are motivated and supported to do so.
When we look at our other disadvantaged groups in our society, individuals from low education parental families, as an example, it shows that the potential for those individuals to go is there as long as we do something to ensure they become motivated early. These individuals must be prepared to go to university or college and succeed. That is where policy attention needs to focus.
We have done a good job with the post-secondary education student financial aid system. I have been writing on it for a decade now. I did one piece for Senator Segal when he was at the Institute of Research on Public Policy, IRPP. We could do better, but we can always do better. The student financial aid system is such that those who want to go can go. The issue again is how do we get at these motivational factors?
That makes the problem harder. It is not just a lever or a simple policy measure, for example, ramping up grants a little. That might be part of the solution. Certainly, we have to ensure that the student financial system is there. That is part of what we must do and communicate to young people that if they want to go, they will be able to go and it will not be an excessive burden. That is part of it. However, it is not as easy a policy lever as the student financial aid system or tinkering with tuition. It is how to get young people who would not otherwise be oriented towards university to be thinking about it. How do we get those boys in grade 9 that are hanging around with their baggy pants and not doing much at all to think about going home to do their homework because they want to go to university? Conceptually speaking, that is where the policy challenge is, but it is a more difficult policy challenge than tuition or student financial aid. It is a problem that addresses people when they are young, across different ages. It cuts across jurisdictions in terms of governments. The federal government has a role in post-secondary education. It is probably something you want to do in the kindergarten to Grade 12 system, which is provincial. Probably local municipal services are involved. It is not just about getting post-secondary education right or doing something in the elementary and high school system. It is also about what we do about kids from disadvantaged, socially isolated families. That is part of the problem.
Can we do anything? It sounds very hard and complex, but I believe very much that we can. As a society, if we want to make a difference, we can, especially with young people. The question and challenge is with our research to find out what we can do, what can make a difference.
I am a researcher. What we need is more research, actually, because we do not know. We have been tinkering around with the aid system but now we are beginning to understand the processes that determine access. We have to find out more about those processes. We have to find out what we can do to give disadvantaged individuals more opportunities to pursue post-secondary education. We can do something.
For example, we can look at the sorts of interventions in high schools. There are some interesting experiments going on across the country such as taking Grade 9 kids who are at the margin and putting them in special classes, giving them the skills to learn, motivating them towards university. We are beginning to learn; we need to learn more.
If you want more research done, I have a great group of 25 or 30 colleagues, and we are always eager to do what we can to do good research that is policy relevant to this country.
The Chair: I want to comment on what you said, Professor Finnie, because I want to look at the non-financial barrier to post-secondary education. The statistics indicate that much of it has to do with whether parents have post- secondary education, their attitude about post-secondary education and how they guide their children in that way.
You hear parents who do not have post-secondary education say that although they do not have it they want their children to attend college or university. However, there are many parents who do not have that attitude and I think that is what we are beginning to see in the statistics.
From what I hear, if money does come into it for the people of lower income, it is more likely to come in to prevent them from completing their education. They work long hours to try to sustain themselves — they do not have the support systems that people of higher income have — and that could be a factor in whether or not they finish school. Correct me if I am wrong.
Since we are at the federal level, what can the federal government do in terms of these non-financial barriers? People automatically say, well, the federal government; more money, more money. What can we do in terms of these issues, of the attitude of parents or the fact that the parents have not gone through post-secondary education? Education is essentially provincial.
Mr. Frenette, what is a ``college'' in terms of these statistics? Are we counting colleges in here when we are measuring university statistics? There are specialized colleges like teachers' college or agricultural colleges or hospital schools, et cetera, but there are also community colleges. We have Algonquin College here in Ottawa, or George Brown College and Seneca College in Toronto. Are these colleges included in the statistics? Are we getting a true picture of post- secondary education? We talk a lot about university but there are also these other kinds of colleges.
Mr. Finnie: I have thought about the non-financial barriers. First, your point about do they drop out because of not enough money, I could draw your attention to page 192 of the book. It is a paper that I co-authored. We find that of those who leave university before completing their studies, only 15 per cent say it is because there is not enough money. We find in the study that the leaving rates are much lower than we used to think, because these data that I talked about — the Canadian Youth in Transition Survey— allow us to look at these patterns in ways that we could not before.
The Chair: How does that 15 per cent break down by income category? Is it higher for the lower income student?
Mr. Finnie: I do not have that information with me. I could give you that answer this afternoon.
What could the government do? That is interesting. We have started an exciting series at the University of Ottawa at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. We call them policy lunches. We get some senior public officials, bureaucrats and academics together and have an off-the-record discussion on several things. This week the topic was complex policy challenges. The discussion was precisely around what the federal government could do in the context of these complex challenges, which cut across jurisdictions and are over the lifetime. I think there are a few things the government could do.
First is the information function. That is important. If we, as a society, get clear on where the issues are, what the problems are, and identify what could be done to ameliorate the situation, then the whole country is better informed and we have the potential for policy, for action on whoever's jurisdiction it lays, to move forward based on that true understanding.
Second, the old-fashioned term was used the other day, the ``bully pulpit.'' The Prime Minister might have made a strong statement the other night when he finished his concert. These statements matter to young people and perhaps such a statement would have an impact on a 15-year-old boy who might otherwise not be thinking of a post-secondary education. The federal government could make strong statements that this type of education matters.
Finally, the federal government can write cheques. Post-secondary education is a complex and delicate thing jurisdictionally, but my view of Canadian policy and intergovernmental relations is that if the federal government shows up with a cheque book they are generally welcome at the table.
The Chair: Yes, of course.
Mr. Finnie: That is part of the solution.
The Chair: How could the federal government advance these non-financial barriers?
Mr. Mueller: We want all qualified young Canadians to be able to enter university or college. That is a universal goal that everyone can agree on. What is shameful is if someone is young and talented and, for whatever reason, is unable to attend post-secondary education.
Many people out there do not have university on their radar screen, let alone college. They come from a background where it is not even considered. We must raise the expectations of these people.
It was not so long ago in this country that not everyone thought they had equal access to medical care. There are many people out there now who may think they do not have equal access to universities. There is information that some people have a poor idea about the costs and benefits of something like a university education. They tend to overestimate the costs and underestimate the benefits. There is a huge financial constraint. We need to get that information out there and say this is what a university is, how much it costs and how a person will benefit, let alone how society will benefit because of that education.
There are many studies in the U.S. that show that information is important. This is where one avenue where parental education works. If you have a parent who has gone to university, they know what scholarships, loans and bursaries are and how to apply for these things, et cetera. If you do not come from that background, you will not have a clue. This may cause you to miscalculate the benefits and the costs of this type of education.
Recent studies show that for low-income people something as simple as helping them fill out or simplifying the loan applications — in the case of some studies in the United States — because they are so confusing, can really help people to overcome this real or perceived barrier.
We are looking at that a little bit more in some of our research. That seems to me intuitively as well as hopefully, ultimately and empirically to be an important avenue; get the information out there, change people's expectations and let them know they can attend PSE if they are qualified.
Mr. Finnie: With respect to the research, it is only of late that we have really understood the nature of these barriers and these processes. It is only of late that our research has been focused on them and figuring out what they can do in the face of what we now understand about the determinants. That is why we do not know as much as we could or should. There is research underway, and that should be part of whatever we do.
The Chair: A little more exploration is needed?
Mr. Finnie: Yes.
The Chair: Mr. Frenette, can you comment about the statistics relevant to post-secondary education with respect to universities and colleges?
Mr. Frenette: The question was: Are certain colleges included toward university credit, as those colleges might essentially lead to a university degree? No. This is looking at university proper in the sense that these programs actually lead to a degree. If one went to Algonquin, for example, and began a program, they might obtain credits at some other university. That would not count. This is basically university proper.
With that said, you mentioned teachers' colleges and teaching hospitals. If those are affiliated or lead to a degree, then those are included. Teachers' college usually leads to a BEd, which would be included.
The Chair: You do not measure community colleges?
Mr. Frenette: No, the focus of the study was on universities. There could be another study on PSE in general or perhaps on colleges separately. There are no issues with that.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr. Finnie: In much of Mr. Mueller's and my work, we looked at colleges as well as universities.
The Chair: Much of your statistics include colleges.
Mr. Finnie: Yes, you can find that information in more detailed papers.
Senator Keon: Thank you very much. I enjoyed your presentations.
I will start with primary school education. If I draw the analogy to health, Mr. Finnie, you mentioned the grade 9 boy with the baggy pants, if we could get at him. I agree that there is still an influence, but I think it is far too late. I think have you to start in the grade 1 and maybe in kindergarten.
It is interesting that 10-year-old-boys or even 8-year-old boys in Canada are scouted by the professional sports teams, if they are exceptionally good. They are brought into the system, they are coddled and so forth, and some of them are fortunate enough to get scholarships. Most of the scholarships are in America, but they are inundated with this whole thing. I think this is a major influence on this frightening phenomenon, I find, that boys are not going to university. It is only one thing. As you say, Mr. Finnie, it is very broad-based.
I want you to comment on how the primary education system could be modified so that kids are taught from the first day that it is a tremendous benefit to be well educated.
I had a recent experience of talking about my own family at a family reunion where all of my siblings — I was the baby of a large family — were university graduates. It was just a bowl of cherries for me to go to university.
I think kids have to get this in primary school. I think perhaps this is a huge defect in our education system, that the primary education system is not preparing kids for post-secondary education. Do you want to comment?
Mr. Finnie: I think every period matters. One thing is to start interventions in the ninth grade as that is a reasonable time to do so, but there is no reason for thinking that is when we should do so. I think it comes down to benefit cost; I am an economist. When is the most effective time for us to intervene? We have to understand the nature of these processes. These are complex, lifelong processes, so we do not yet know that, but it could well be.
There is an experimental program in B.C. where they are taking people in the ninth grade, at the margin, and they are giving them certain classes. Can that have an effect? That is one experiment of I do not know how many that we could and should be doing to find out what works, what is the most effective time to intervene and the most effective kind of intervention that we would like to see. We just do not know that yet, but you may well be right.
Mr. Mueller: When this committee was convened yesterday, someone said something about coordinating statistics across provinces or something to that effect. We need better data. We do not understand much of what goes on in primary and secondary schools, and certainly not from a research perspective where we can look at these things and try to generalize the population and what is going on. Gathering better data would be the first step.
We had a small workshop last weekend and someone was talking about the data in British Columbia, which is linked from the time students are in elementary school all the way to their post-secondary education. This is the kind of data we need. One reason we look at post-secondary now and cannot address some of these issues is we simply do not have the data. In addition, there is a lot of work being done by eminent economists as well as non-economists, such as child development specialists, looking at what is going on.
My understanding is that there is a raging debate right now about when the best time is to intervene. Most people agree earlier is better, but how much earlier? Some people will say ages 0 years to 2 years and 2 years to 6 years might be important; others say in vitro is the time to do so. We do not know. We certainly do not know how to estimate the effects of these things, given the data we have right now.
Senator Keon: If you do not intervene, you cannot set up the study.
Mr. Mueller: That is correct and there are many issues when it comes to this type of research.
Mr. Frenette: I will speak to some research out there. I do not claim to be an expert because I do not conduct this sort of research, but I will talk about U.S. research.
With regard to what helps in the early years in the classrooms, class size has been negatively linked to academic achievement. There was a lot of debate in the literature for several years where studies contradicted themselves, until they started running experiments and randomly assigning students to different classroom sizes based on a Tennessee STAR experiment. STAR stands for Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio. I can obtain that study for you. That study clearly showed there were negative causal affects based on that study.
Senator Keon, you mentioned the boy-girl differences, the fact that boys are less likely to go on to university, et cetera. Some U.S. studies suggest that teacher gender matters a great deal. In the first few years, females are more likely to be teaching students, and in the later years, such as in high school, it is more of an even split between male and female teachers. The study by Thomas Dee in the U.S. suggests that teacher gender helps boys and girls advance. If a child has a teacher of the same gender, it has a positive impact on the child.
Senator Keon: Thank you. That is interesting.
[Translation]
Senator Dawson: First of all, I would like to thank Senator Segal. I find it most unfortunate that Quebecers have to complain about the fact that documents are not submitted in both official languages. They come off looking like the bad guys.
[English]
It is always difficult to do if you are a Quebecer. It is difficult to say you do not want the document. Actually, the book, as you might notice, is in English, but you can still refer to it, which is an issue that could be debated. The advantage of the book being in English is that the introductory chapters have six lines in French. I skimmed through them, and I now have a short resume of the book.
I point to the chart on page 245 showing tuition fees between Quebec, in particular, and the rest of the country. Quebec tuition fees averaged $2,000 and British Columbia averaged $6,000 for post-secondary education per year. If cost is a factor, do you have statistics on the distinction between Quebec and the rest of the country? Do you have a distinction between minority education in Ontario and/or Quebec and its effect on post-secondary? I am flabbergasted by the statistics on women: 38 per cent of women go on to study and only 25 per cent of men go on to study. I did not have time to see the progression or regression. Only 50 per cent of those who go on to post-secondary education finish that education. Do more women complete their studies as compared to men?
I have a 19-year-old son, so I know what you mean when you talk about the baggy pants. He goes to CEGEP, which is a four-session program, normally a two-year program. Sixty-six per cent of the boys complete it in five sessions, and probably 90 per cent or 95 per cent of the female students do it in four sessions, as the program was planned. If you finish your CEGEP in December and you start university in January, you do not have the same integration process at the university that you would have if you start in September. It is a perpetual problem.
I want to discuss the distinction between Quebec and the other provinces. If the tuition fees are so much lower in Quebec, does that have a positive effect or is it just money not being collected and used? Obviously it is the same thing in Quebec. Rich people pay less to go to university in Quebec. That means poor people do not have that money to go anyway. I am wondering if there was a mathematical reflection of that distinction.
Mr. Finnie: It is clear that Quebec has by far the lowest tuition rates; the rates are free for CEGEP. They are by far the lowest in Canada, around $2,000 per year. In some other provinces they are upwards between $4,000 through $7,000 per year. Quebec has the lowest participation rates in university in particular. Why is that? Well, it is because tuition is not the main determining factor of who goes to university. In fact, when you look at the reasons why Québécois do not go to university, it is because they are not interested. What does that mean? It reflects motivation; it reflects preparation; it reflects other things.
I have a couple of projects underway where we are taking advantage of some of these changes in tuition. There was a remarkable increase in British Columbia from around 2001-02 up to a couple of years later. We are exploiting that natural experiment in the data to try to identify the effects of tuition. Was there a significant decrease in participation rates in B.C. or among certain groups? I presented some of this at our workshop this last weekend. It is still preliminary enough that I would rather not speak further about it. About 50 per cent finishing, you did not get far enough in the paper.
Senator Dawson: I stayed on the French chapter.
Mr. Finnie: Fair enough. In the chapter by Theresa Qiu and me, that is the rate from a given program in a given institution. However, once you look across institutions, people who leave and then come back or move somewhere else, the graduation rate at university after five years, similar to college, rises from 50 per cent to 70 per cent, and another 20 per cent is still in PSE. The full drop-out rate is not 50 per cent; it is not 30 per cent; it is more like 10 per cent after five years. That is very important.
Finally, in another paper I also presented with a colleague we are looking at gap year effects, those who take time off from their studies. If anything, it appears to have something of a positive effect. Gap year people tend to be those individuals who were not doing quite as well in high school. They take some time off, and when they come back they do as well as others. It seems that there is almost an advantage, but these particular pathways, when they enter, I do not think that has been explored. One could do that. That is an interesting research topic.
Mr. Frenette: First, I want to apologize for not having French slides available. We received late notice and we have been working on it as of this morning, but we will provide those as quickly as possible.
Second, about the gender gap in university attendance, you asked if that had changed at some point. In fact, it has. There has been a complete reversal. Back in 1971, 68 per cent of university students were male; in 2001, 58 per cent were female. There has been a complete reversal over the last 20 or 30 years.
Senator Dawson: Maybe the same thing will happen in the Senate or in Parliament.
Senator Eaton: Thank you for your very interesting presentations. Perhaps post-secondary education should be marketed in a broader sense. Some people are not academically bent, but we seem to have given university a very high status and other post-secondary institutions a lesser status.
Have there not been studies showing that when boys and girls are educated together, the girls benefit but the boys do not, especially as they get into higher grades? Boys have different ways of learning. Perhaps if we did more studies on that aspect and changed it, we might be able to motivate and mentor boys to go on to post-secondary education.
Have universities or high schools taken into account students learning disabilities? I think that language affects our immigrant populations. I was reading studies in the New York Times last year that the New York school system is finding out that many of their Latino students are dropping out in grade 8 and grade 9 because their language facility in English is not good enough so they simply give up.
In doing a bit of studies here, immigrants are less and less likely to learn either English or French. Only 25 per cent of them take up the option. The new wave of immigrants does not come to this country like in the old days from Eurocentric backgrounds where they probably knew French or a Latin language. They are coming from either Asian or Middle Eastern countries and are not taking up the option of becoming fluent in either English or French to the degree they did previously. That might have an impact on students dropping out of university or not going on to post- secondary education. Do any of you have any comments?
Mr. Mueller: You said 25 per cent do not learn either English or French? That is immigrants?
Senator Eaton: Only 25 per cent are taking advantage of learning English or French when they come to this country.
Mr. Mueller: That might not account for those who already come with those language abilities. Our immigration policy is such that they are screened on those criteria.
Senator Eaton: Yes, but we do not always do as good a job as we might in encouraging people to become fluent in our two official languages.
Mr. Mueller: Okay. That is fine. Let us take a longer-term perspective in terms of both the benefits and costs of immigration, and one of the benefits is that by the second generation a lot of these differences between immigrants and the Canadian-born are starting to disappear. We could look at that perspective. People might come here and not want to learn English or French, but their children will likely want to. There are some exceptions to that rule. Certainly, if we compare Canada to certain parts of Europe where they have immigrant enclaves, I suspect that the disincentive to learn the local language is a lot less if you are surrounded by your own linguistic group. In Canada, to date, I have not heard any problems, but I could be wrong.
Mr. Frenette: If I may, I am not an expert in this area. You mentioned that the second-generation children of immigrants might learn to speak either English or French. A study by a professor at Carleton University, Christopher Worswick, looked at academic performance in different areas, including, I believe in reading, specifically of children of immigrants. It might be useful to look at that study.
Senator Eaton: I also refer to immigrants with children whose first language is neither French nor English.
Mr. Finnie: They are doing okay. The study was restricted to those who came here by the age of 15 years and was focused on PSE. The post-secondary education participation rates for every immigrant group, in particular at university, were higher than for non-immigrant Canadians. Some were incredibly higher. For example, Chinese participate in university at a rate of 90 per cent and another 8 per cent in college. As long as they arrive early enough, the children of immigrants seem to be doing okay. Beyond that is adult education, which is another issue that our research does not address.
Senator Eaton: Have you done your studies in Toronto and Vancouver?
Mr. Finnie: Our data are national, and a representative sample is used. Yes, those children are doing very well.
Senator Eaton: Have you done any studies about separating boys and girls at a younger age to teach boys different styles of learning before they move on to post-secondary education?
Mr. Frenette: That would require a massive overhaul of the schooling system and would create segregated schools.
Senator Eaton: We might have to do that if we continue to see the numbers of boys not equalling the numbers of girls going to universities. We might have to think about that.
Mr. Finnie: There is a bit of research, but none of us has done it. It would be interesting to know more about anything to do with the K-12 system. Those results would be interesting.
Senator Ogilvie: I congratulate you on the balance of your presentation. Virtually all of your major observations resonate with my lifelong experience in the area of post-secondary education. I am absolutely delighted to see us beginning to gather the data that will help us to move beyond the politically easy issue of dollars, which opposition at the student level or real political life have used as an easy way of dealing with many of these issues and the issue of correctness that has dramatically influenced, in particular the K-12 system, the issues that have gone on over the course of my lifetime. It has had a considerable influence on the substantial change in the motivation of young men to escape successfully from the overall system.
I am absolutely delighted with the tone and the substance of the identified issues that you have touched on today. It will help to motivate us to drill down into those underlying areas. Anecdotally, in my experience of running a university, when we were able to identify individual students in the K-12 system at the graduating year or the year before, either through a high school principal or a teacher who recognized someone with great potential but who had no motivation for the reasons you have identified, we were able to work together to motivate that individual to move on to university. Almost all were 100 per cent successful, but that is an expensive, focused way of moving it forward; but there are clear lessons to be learned.
Anecdotally, with regard to the cost, we hear continuously that Nova Scotia has the highest tuition fees in the country. Yet, if I recall correctly, you indicated that we have the highest participation rates, and that it has been so for some while. I did a study about 10 years ago that looked at substantially raising international tuition fees. I found that the numbers of applications to international programs — students applying abroad for programs, in particular for applied business, computer science, et cetera, were directly proportional to the amount of the tuition fee. That is, the perception of the higher the quality the greater the application rate. Those places having near zero tuition had very few, if any, applications.
I also noted that you are presenting research based largely on the university issue. However, you touched on the question of apprenticeship programs and vocational areas. This is an important aspect of where we go forward. My experience is that during my lifetime, until recently, Canadians devalued diploma, apprenticeship and vocational programs relative to university. In other words, our societal statements about who was truly important in society placed a heavy emphasis on students graduating from certain programs at universities. However, despite having their degree, graduates often had to go back and complete a diploma program in order to be successful. Many young people have a much greater aptitude and tenacity for the more pragmatic side of education. If we were able to deal with that issue as we motivate young people for PSE, we might be able to enhance the structure appropriately.
There is a second benefit. My experience has shown me that a lack of access to vocationally and technically trained individuals has an impact on businesses starting up in certain regions of our country. As a result, we do not have as many of those businesses as we could have to employ more of those people today. It is an important part of socio- economic development.
I have made observations only. I was so pleased with the nature of your presentation and the identification and focus on those things that might make a difference to the future.
Mr. Finnie: We need to learn more about your example of moving the students forward. What exactly happened? We are not talking about starting at the age of 5 years or 7 years. Perhaps that would be the best age but, given that we have not done so, what could we do? We need to find out much more about that.
Provincial differences are very interesting. Mr. Mueller and I are finishing up some new work on that. In Nova Scotia, children go to PSE more but they drop out at higher rates. All sorts of interesting things are happening across the provinces. We do not have a Canadian post-secondary education system. Rather, we have 10 provincial and territorial systems, which we are exploring.
I will remark on your comments about college, which picks up on the other point. I agree that anyone who teaches at a university knows that some students are better suited to college, but they succumb to parental and/or societal pressure to go to university; and that is a shame. PSE should be about those who want to go and about getting the right match for them and for the country.
Mr. Mueller: Senator, you said that some people have academic training and return to school for vocational training. That certainly is the case. We are doing some preliminary research on apprenticeships. We are surprised by the number of people who have college education and even more surprised by the number of people who have university education who go back to pick up an apprenticeship. My colleague was implying that there might be a mismatch at the beginning of certain programs. Our system is flexible enough to allow people to realize that they are not a good fit for their choice and to make amends.
Senator Callbeck: Mr. Frenette, you said that 31 per cent in the bottom income level attend university. What is the cap of the bottom income?
Mr. Frenette: By ``bottom,'' I mean the bottom income quartile, the bottom 25 per cent. I could get the exact numbers for you. Offhand, I do not recall the cut-off.
If you want to think about it in terms of a low-income cut-off, it is probably about twice as high. Still, it is in the bottom 25 per cent of the Canadian income distribution. I can get those numbers for you.
Senator Callbeck: You indicated that 10 per cent of the students said that finances were a problem.
Mr. Frenette: Yes, 10 per cent of all students.
Senator Callbeck: Then you mentioned 76 per cent, and with that, you mentioned several things — lower marks, less-educated parents, less motivated by parents and so on. Do you have that 76 per cent broken down?
Mr. Frenette: Of that, parental education and academic performance are the two biggest factors. I can find it in the book, if you like.
Senator Callbeck: No, I can look in the book.
Mr. Frenette: Those are the two biggest reasons behind the gap in university attendance. Parental expectations matter, but not as much as the first two.
Senator Callbeck: You talked about the effect that high debt has, such as home ownership. You mentioned marriage. Did you mean that they marry less or that they marry later?
Mr. Frenette: It is at the date of the study. This is a U.S. study. A few years following graduation from university or college, they sampled these students and asked them if they had married. It is at that point. It is rare that you have a lifetime study that follows them from age 20 years.
Mr. Finnie: I have some unpublished work on that subject. I took longitudinal data that followed people over time. I related the amount of debt to the three outcomes of marriage, having children, and savings. Savings captured RRSPs.
The only effect I found for Canada was a short-run effect for college students on their RRSPs among those who had the highest debt levels. Apart from that, I found no effect on marriage, children or savings among university students.
I have to get that paper out. I could forward it to you.
The Chair: We would appreciate it if you would send it to the committee.
Mr. Finnie: It is a good paper but you get busy; I have a stack of them. Lots of people have read that one and I stand by it. That is why I am glad to talk about that and not some of this other research. I am being careful.
Senator Callbeck: I would like to have a copy of that paper.
Mr. Finnie: I would be glad to send it to you.
Senator Callbeck: The other thing you said was that it affects job search. How do you mean?
Mr. Frenette: It is not how I mean; it is how the authors in the U.S. study mean. They looked at what they called ``public interest jobs'' — things like becoming a nurse or a public lawyer, public sector jobs.
The idea here is that if you have a high debt load — again, this is according to those authors — you may want to hurry up and pay that off. What do you do? You go off and work on Wall Street as opposed to being a nurse or having some other lower paid occupation.
Senator Callbeck: Mr. Mueller, concerning the statistics about Atlantic Canada and the high ratio, are those statistics taken from the home of the student or from the university. For example, are Alberta students that go to Acadia included in Nova Scotia figures?
Mr. Finnie: No.
Mr. Mueller: I do not believe so. One of the factors we thought about is that Nova Scotia has a good university system and a high participation rate in university, so it attracts students from other provinces. We did look at that once; we found out there were relatively few transfer students or students moving between provinces, if I remember correctly. In terms of our research, it was not skewing our results.
Mr. Finnie: The one flow is precisely Ontario students going to Nova Scotia. I have a paper on that I could send you. That one is published; it is in a journal and everything.
However, from our statistics, the answer is ``no.'' We look at individuals who grew up in Nova Scotia; do they go to university or not, wherever they go? To answer your question precisely, those results are not inflated by students coming from elsewhere to Nova Scotia universities.
Senator Callbeck: The chair was asking you about students that drop out. You said 15 per cent leave because of finances. Have you analyzed that 15 per cent any further? Are these students from low-income families or do you know?
Mr. Finnie: I cannot remember, but the problem is that there are so few of them. Of those who start university, 15 per cent leave; and of that 15 per cent, 15 per cent say it is because of low income. We are talking about 15 times 15, which is a couple of percentages of the sample. The numbers are so small, they are difficult to analyze.
[Translation]
Senator Pépin: My question ties in with the one put by Senator Eaton who was asking about the most appropriate moment at which to intervene. Why not come back to the time when girls and boys were educated separately? In my days, boys had professors, while girls were taught throughout their life either by teachers or members of religious orders.
At the elementary level, self-identification is important. However, at the secondary level, boys in mixed classes begin to show an interest in girls. They may feel attracted to a particular girl who does better academically then they do. Their sense of self-worth suffers.
I think this option is worth exploring. Female university enrolment continues to increase. Today, 75 per cent of medical students are female. I am not saying this because I am opposed to the idea. On the contrary, I have been a staunch defender of equality for women. However, we need to find out why boys start dropping out by the time they reach secondary school.
Boys like to be in class with girls. They could meet during their free periods, but during class hours and during study periods, they should study separately. How do you feel about that? Is this an option worth exploring?
Mr. Finnie: In an upcoming book that I am working on with a colleague from Queen's University, I examine the factors that contribute to the dropout rate among boys. We are currently looking at this very issue. You say that boys feel uncomfortable when girls perform better than they do. I think the opposite is true.
I get the feeling that boys do not think it is ``cool'' to do well in school. There is very little data on this subject, but it would be a fascinating topic to explore.
Senator Pépin: It may not be ``cool'' right now, but if boys studied only with boys, that situation could change.
Mr. Finnie: I think we need to look at the factors that lead boys to drop out of school. We need to ask ourselves what we must do to prevent that from happening. We could experiment by adjusting the girl-to-boy ratio in a particular grade. We could also ask boys why they think it is not ``cool'' to do well in school. That could be focus of our research and our policies down the road.
Senator Pépin: I think it would be a good idea for boys to have male teachers at the elementary level, to help with self-identification.
Mr. Finnie: That is one possibility.
Mr. Frenette: Mention was made earlier of some research being carried out on this very subject, namely male teachers.
Senator Pépin: It is also cause for some concern to see girls dominate at the university level, even in engineering. At least that is the case at my university.
Mr. Finnie: As you pointed out, two thirds of the medical students at the University of Ottawa are female. We are also seeing many immigrants, because they are motivated. It comes down to motivation. Young women are focussed on the future.
[English]
Senator Cordy: You have given us a tremendous amount of interesting information this morning. As a former elementary school teacher, I was particularly interested to see when one actually starts the process of encouraging post- secondary education. I think it starts in kindergarten, which I taught for a number of years.
One of the things I am interested in and you did not mention was student involvement, which creates an attachment to the school. Does the attachment at school, through the student council, teams, et cetera, create more of a likelihood of a student going on to university?
The challenges of attachments or involvements in the schools are that, now, many high school students have part- time jobs. Some work 10 hours a week, which is workable, but some work 20 hours to 30 hours per week. I know you mentioned that in your material; namely that a part-time job is detrimental to finishing school. Senator Dawson talked about the time boys are taking to finish CEGEP as opposed to girls. Are part-time jobs a consideration there, as well?
You said the motivation to go on to post-secondary education is very complex. You have given us an example. We cannot, unfortunately, take an Aspirin and it will fix the problem, or push a button or give more money. We wish it were that easy but it is not.
Those of us sitting around the table all understand the statistics around the likelihood of higher salaries for those who get a university or post-secondary education. Someone gave us statistics yesterday that, in the recession, there have been 40,000 new jobs for university graduates, even though 370,000 jobs have been lost in during the recession.
How do we communicate that to high school students so that they understand it? When you are 15 years of age, you are only looking at what you will do tonight or tomorrow night; you are not really thinking about what you will earn in 10 years' time. How do we communicate with that age bracket and not have our communications directed at people of our age?
The comment that you made about the gap year will considerably ease a lot of parents' minds.
Mr. Mueller: I think we have a control for that, though we did not call it student involvement; I believe we call it ``student engagement.'' It is the whole idea about how comfortable you feel at the school, and so on. There is no evidence that it matters. At least in our work, it did not seem to matter.
Mr. Finnie: As surprising as that is.
Mr. Mueller: It is somewhat surprising. I could speak about that. It is in the paper.
The recent conventional wisdom was that a bit of work is not a bad thing. If you are working under 10 hours a week, it is probably not a bad thing and will not be detrimental on studies. The paper essentially says that not working is the best option. It also indicates that it is not just the time dimension of work that is important, but volunteering and participating in sports are positively related to success at attending PSE. Working is bad, but volunteering and sports are good. However, I would not necessarily push non-athletes into sports. What we are picking up here is that it affected very motivated kids who are more likely to work, volunteer and also get good grades at school. I suspect that is probably what is happening there. The punch line ``no work'' is probably the best option in high school. Mr. Finnie will answer the third point.
Mr. Finnie: To reiterate, our research on work during post-secondary education is continuing. The research today in Canada is not very good, but we are exploring both the data we have used here and other data to try to get at that question. It is hugely important. There is a whole nexus of engagement, progress with the system, work and time at studies. It is hugely important. I think we are beginning to crack that one but, at this point, I do not think there is a definitive answer, as opposed to the high school thing.
I will follow-up on Mr. Mueller's point. We do not necessarily want to encourage people to go into athletics. The causality is not necessarily shown there. However, we get back to the problem with boys. I cannot help but hypothesize that those are the sorts of activities that could make a difference. That gets to the other point about making them aware of the benefits of post-secondary education early on.
To me, these all point to constructing a kind of intervention or a set of interventions which get at all those things.
These kids get out of school now at 2:30 or three o'clock. The parents are not around so much. I am not a traditionalist but maybe there is something we can do. For example, perhaps we can get them into activities, which, themselves, have benefits. As part of that process, there can perhaps be communication in terms of thinking ahead about their lives, not necessarily only about university. As you said, it might be beneficial to have them thinking beyond tonight or tomorrow night.
Again, we need to know more about that. That is the promise for the future, I think.
Senator Martin: There are so many comments that I want to make in response to what some of my colleagues have said, as well as your comments.
I have my own idea of a solution and a question, as a British Columbian, regarding British Columbia. As a high school teacher for 14 years and a middle school teacher of 11- to 13-year-olds for 7 years, I could even venture to say that post-secondary education preparation perhaps begins in the womb. There is a woman in British Columbia who I am meeting with this week who wants to launch something called Books for Babies. I know literacy is one of the main goals for most schools; I was on a literacy team. All teachers and everyone around this table would agree that literacy and enjoyment of reading, or the amount of reading done, directly correlates to success in school because it is essential across curriculums. However, we are finding more and more that boys are not reading. Why is this?
There is a book we studied as a literacy team. It is called The Joys of Teaching Boys. There have been extensive studies, but more research is needed, as you have said. My request to you would be to look at how boys learn differently. During my 21 years as a teacher, I saw many boys in the adapted programs or with learning disabilities. Even autism is more prevalent among boys. These are the challenges in the classroom and they directly impact how successful these boys will be and whether they can access post-secondary education. Boys are a challenge, but in a positive and challenging way for schoolteachers. That is an area that we must focus.
A small solution may lie in the departments of education in the universities. They have an important job in attracting — and this begins early, so it is all cyclical — more males to the program. I am sure Senator Cordy could agree that a male teacher would be a minority in most elementary schools. There may be one or two in the whole school.
Not all boys learn better under a male teacher, but having a male mentor or role model in the school is very important. In turn, having female principals is good in seeing that gender balance. It would be good to see more males going into elementary education and understanding the importance of it as a nation. That may not be a solution, but it is something that we must encourage in leadership and at this level.
Mr. Mueller said that British Columbia has lower levels of post-secondary education participation. I am a little surprised, but curious as to why.
Mr. Finnie: The British Columbia data are mixed. The Canadian Youth in Transition Survey show lower rates. Other data show the difference may not be as great. I put my money on the Youth in Transition Surveys at this point, but that is a technical data issue.
Mr. Mueller and I have this paper underway. Some results will be in the final report of our research group, the MESA Project, looking at these differences by province. The MESA Project is the Measuring the Effectiveness of Student Aid Project. For example, the effects of family income vary considerably from one province to the other. Many things are going on at the provincial level. This is the sort of research that we need to tap into to try experiments in Canada to determine what works and then roll out a program. That is what we need to do. The Millennium Foundation is winding down. One thing it was most appreciated for in all quarters was its research function. It will end December 31. The MESA Project was part of that and we will also wind down December 31. We are struggling to keep going; we do not need much money. The research function and objectives need to be kept alive. At this point, there is no concrete plan in place. We have learned lots over the last five or six years, but for that learning process to continue, some commitment is required — not much, but something.
Do you want to give me a call?
The Chair: We want to give you money, too.
Mr. Finnie: We have a group of 25 or 30 researchers that all want to go forward. Money is a non-issue as long as we have the resources; a few research assistants are all we need.
Senator Martin: Regarding the attachment theory that Senator Cordy raised, an educational psychologist has spoken about the attachment theory. Especially with boys, a teacher or male mentor that they attach to more than their peers could be an important step in leading them to post-secondary education. That is something else I would like to ask you to look into further in your research. Thank you for all the research you have done to date.
The Chair: All he needs is more money to do it.
Mr. Finnie: Not much.
Senator Fairbairn: My friend across the way raised an issue that is hard for me not to raise again. You talk about the education of the country and the level at which it must begin with children. Canada still does not think that we have a great issue regarding literacy. We have stepped back from it in the last few years for a variety of issues, but it is there.
You are looking into the opportunities for and difficulties in learning for younger people. This is part of our social life in Alberta and everywhere in Canada. Literacy is still a large issue in this country. Have you any sense that this is appearing louder than before? To what degree is this a tremendous disappointment for the potential of children as they begin learning?
Mr. Mueller: I appreciate what you are saying. I have no idea of any research addressing that subject. We are studying post-secondary education. We know that reading is an important determinant of post-secondary attendance. That is as far as I can go on this, but your points are valid.
Mr. Frenette: Regarding whether things have gotten worse on literacy, the problem is getting comparable measures of literacy. We cannot go beyond the 1990s. There is no comparable data in Canada. It always comes down to the availability of data in research.
Senator Fairbairn: That is too bad.
Mr. Finnie: We have high school grades in our research from each year. There is also the PISA reading score from the Programme for International Student Assessment. That is the core data that we have been working with. The Canadian Youth in Transition Survey was built around that. They had the foresight to expand the sample, ask more questions and follow the people over time. The single most important predictor is parental education followed by these reading scores. It is hugely important. Is that causality or correlation? We could start a program where we go into high schools and create a reading program. This is the right sort of speculation. There is also an organization in Toronto call the Children's Book Bank in the Jane and Finch area. They invited me to visit after our research was reported by Jeffrey Simpson. The program is like a book store. The children go in and are allowed to leave without paying for the book; the book is free.
It would be interesting to see the effect of that or for the reading program. These are the future possibilities.
The Chair: That brings us to the end of the meeting. Thank you for your input. It is valuable information and much food for thought.
Mr. Finnie: Go home and read the book.
The Chair: We have books to read.
If there is no further business, I will adjourn this meeting.
(The committee adjourned.)