HUMA Committee Report

THE CAPACITY TO EDUCATE AND TRAIN

 

A.  Federal Funding for Post-secondary Education and Training

Statistics Canada estimates that in 1997-98, the most recent year for which data are available, governments (mainly provincial/territorial) funded approximately 62 per cent of the total cost of post-secondary education, down 12 percentage points from 1990-91.  The remaining share (38 per cent) of the costs of post-secondary education is funded through student fees, research grants, donations, investment income and other sources of revenue. In 1997-98, student fees covered 17.3 per cent of the cost of post-secondary education, up dramatically from 8.7 per cent in 1990-91. Even though student fees account for less than one-fifth of total cost of post-secondary education, students’ share of overall costs has increased by almost two-thirds since the beginning of the 1990s. Many of our witnesses suggested that student fees have increased enough and should be frozen, while others called for their outright abolition. Most thought that governments should increase their contribution to Canada’s post-secondary system.

Given the importance of learning in a knowledge-based economy, this Committee was reminded, on several occasions, about the importance of maintaining and improving teaching capacity both in an institutional and on-the- job context. Concern was expressed about the future quality of education in Canada’s post-secondary system. In recent years, reduced funding and increased enrolment has caused student-faculty ratios to rise; in Ontario, for example, student/faculty ratios have gone up by 25 per cent in the past decade[16]  -- 35 per cent higher than that in public universities in the United States.  Without additional funding, this situation could become much worse due to the 20 per cent increase in enrolment expected by 2010.

Fiscal restraint, according to our witnesses, has caused many institutions to defer maintenance and, as a result, the infrastructure of most universities and colleges needs both refurbishing and enhancing.  We were also told that some of our public training institutions lack modern equipment and consequently cannot teach the skills and provide the necessary experience that students need to enter today’s labour market successfully.  Paul Cappon, Director General, Council of Ministers of Education, revealed the extent of concern when he told the Committee that:

… the question of institutional capacity and resourcing is uppermost on the minds of ministers and deputy ministers at CMEC, [and] in fact, was the major focus of discussion at our recent meetings in Toronto. A report that we received recently suggests that substantial investments will be required to sustain the post-secondary system at current levels, just to sustain it at current levels in order to maintain current participation rates, renew the professorial staff and address the deferred maintenance and infrastructure costs.[17] 

The question of the federal government’s ability to address the issue of capacity leads to sharply diverging approaches.  At present, federal funding for post-secondary education is incorporated in the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST), an unconditional transfer, that some believe does not lend itself to the kind of targeted transfer that is needed to increase the capacity of, and improve the infrastructure within, our post-secondary system.  Although it is possible to tie future increases in the transfer to increased spending on the post-secondary system, much like the recent increase in the CHST for health care, it might be difficult to target spending on specific capacity-building initiatives.  Opponents of the CHST maintain that we need to renew federal/provincial co-operation in this area in order to meet the needs of tomorrow’s graduates. During our hearings, witnesses suggested a federal/provincial/territorial, or pan-Canadian, accord on post-secondary education within the Social Union Framework Agreement (SUFA).  Although Quebec has not signed the SUFA, it receives funding from the agreement on the same basis as the other provinces.  The provisions of SUFA appear to fit quite neatly with the priorities for post-secondary education and learning.  These include:

• Ensuring access to essential programs and services of reasonably comparable quality;
• Assistance to those in need;
• Working in partnership with various players and ensuring that Canadians have meaningful input into policies and programs;
• Providing sustainable funding for social programs;
• Creating public accountability and transparency.

 

Moving in this direction, would have the additional benefit of giving this issue greater prominence within the senior federal bureaucracy and the Cabinet. Obviously, this is a difficult issue and clearly requires federal/provincial co-operation.

The next steps are:

 

• to explore further how federal funding mechanisms for higher learning can be strengthened and how we can afford greater prominence to post-secondary education and training in the federal government while respecting provincial jurisdiction, and
• to include an evaluation of the place of post-secondary education and training in the review of the Social Union Framework Agreement that will be undertaken by February 2002.

B.  Potential Skill Shortages Among Educators and Trainers

 

Although 54 per cent of Canada’s population has completed some post-secondary education (i.e. university, college or vocational training), the Committee was told that 16 out of every 17 jobs created during the next decade will require at least some post-secondary schooling or training. Hence, future enrolment in our post-secondary education and training system should grow during this period.  The demographic make-up of Canada’s population points to future potential skill shortages in many key occupational areas including, for example, in information technology, health care and a range of technical trades in the steel, automotive and construction industries. The avoidance of these shortages in tomorrow’s labour market is critical to Canada’s economic well-being. One of the necessary, though not sufficient, ingredients to ensure that we have an adequate supply of skills in this country is to have an adequate supply of teachers and trainers. Many of our trainers, teachers and professors will be retiring over the next ten years and we have concerns about our ability to replace them.  In the area of skills training, Robert Blakely, Director Canadian Affairs, Building and Construction Trades Department, told us that:

Our trades are all now going through a demographic bulge. The average age of a tradesman in this country is now in the upper 40s-late 50s. With the amount of work that is forecast and with the number of people who are going to leave our industry we are now in a situation where we're virtually in crisis. The baby boom generation is going to leave the construction industry in the next ten years and if we do not get the skills transfer, if we do not get the ability to attract bright young people into our trades, there is going to be a very difficult situation.[18]

In his testimony, Paul Davenport, the President of the University of Western Ontario, said that on behalf of Canada’s universities:

Finally I want to make a special plea, Mr. Chairman, for graduate students. As part of this enormous increase in accessibility that we're trying to support, we're going to see a binge of retirements at our university. We're going to lose an awful lot of our faculty. Something like a third over the next decade.[19]

The next steps are:

• to study ways of enhancing our teaching and training capacity in the years to come,
  
• to review the budgets of our research granting councils with a view to augmenting support for graduate students,[20] and
  
• to review the role of the federal government in promoting trades training and the retention of those in the system to ensure that they attain journeyman status. Journeymen are the professors of trades training and it is critical that we maintain a high quality teaching capacity within this key component of Canada’s post-secondary system.

 

 

 

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTION

Good public policy does not create artificial barriers or categories and consequent administrative overlap.  In his report in December 2000, the Auditor General set out a framework for managing issues, like post-secondary education, that cut across jurisdictions in addition to crossing departmental boundaries within jurisdictions themselves.[21]  This Committee believes that the federal government’s future activities, as well as our own ongoing study in post-secondary education and training, should take this into account.  The key elements are:

 

• Identifying an effective coordination structure;
• Agreeing on common objectives, results and strategies;
• Measuring results to track performance;
• Using information to improve performance;
• Effectively reporting performance.

While this framework deals with the ‘process’, it is not sufficient in and of itself.  In the case of post-secondary education, it is equally clear that any overall approach must take into account that there is no single solution, no silver bullet, which can address the issues that we have outlined in this report.  It is obvious to us that overall questions of access and mobility must be dealt with by policies and programs that take a coordinated approach which encompasses the needs of students, institutions, jurisdictions and society.

This is the case for the student population as a whole, but more particularly for certain groups in our society.  To take one of the more challenging examples:  This means that to ensure people with disabilities with access to post-secondary education and training, there must be assistance of a global nature for students but also additional assistance to meet the additional cost of disability.  Universities and colleges must as a whole develop a framework to address these needs.  Individual institutions must also deal with students with disabilities on an individual basis.  This means not just providing them with technical aids but also ensuring access to libraries, classrooms and research facilities as well as flexible arrangements for study.  At the higher level, this means that provincial governments must recognize the overall need for access and make funds available.  For its part, the federal government must work with all the other partners to facilitate both equity and access.  Analogous arrangements need to be put in place for Aboriginals, and immigrants, among others.

Only by taking a broader strategic perspective can Canada provide the post-secondary education and training system that its citizens deserve.

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