remedial studies for our university system
I've been a terrible blogger since I started school again, but I'm going to try to get back into it.
The topic of my education class this week—yup, I'm back in that class again, except this time for credit. Yay!—was PSE reform. The readings for class served as the inspiration for an opinions piece I wrote for my old paper, the Fulcrum, which I've included below.
One of the most interesting pieces we had to read was a report by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO). They recently commissioned a report entitled The Benefits of Greater Differentiation of Ontario's University Sector. To me, a system of greater differentiation would solve multiple problems plaguing our current education system, in particular those based on accessibility to information. Here are some of my thoughts on where the system needs to go, written in the form of an open letter to university presidents across the country:
Dear university presidents of Canada,
You are failing us. No, I’m not talking about the hundreds of failing grades we rightfully earned last semester. I’m talking about how the million undergraduate students enrolled in Canadian universities right now are being ill-prepared for the working world in a poorly organized education system.
It’s no secret recent grads are having a hard time finding jobs. With youth unemployment at 13.5 per cent, even the brightest students are stuck waiting tables a few weeks after graduation. And perhaps we’ve been naïve. We busted ass for four years to earn that BA, but we shouldn’t have really expected to enter the work force and make a livable wage. Wait—what?
It seems like the university system in Canada is overly preoccupied with the input-output function of institutions. On the input side, students enroll, tuition is paid, funding for research comes in, professors and other support staff fill the buildings. Then a bunch of stuff happens, and we magically have graduation rates, research findings, and rankings to report.
But what about your students? Where do our academic experiences, satisfaction with the university we’ve likely devoted four years of our lives to, or the extent to which we’ve truly mastered our field fit into this black-box approach to education? What’s going on inside that box is where the majority of our problems occur.
Universities pride themselves for teaching students critical thinking and reasoning skills. Yet upon entering the work force, many grads have little to offer employers in terms of “skills”. Skills, primarily associated with the hands-on learning done at colleges, are a severely lacking component of university curriculum. When one considers the majority of BA graduates would like to enter the work force without further education, learning a skill or two in undergrad isn’t asking a lot.
We also lack the information we need to make decisions about our education—be it as 16 year olds in high school trying to decide if university is for us, or as 25 year olds making the decision to pursue a PhD. While it may be difficult to publish national data on enrolment, graduation rates, and employment of recent graduates, you have this information on your schools, and that’s the information we care about.
And because you have this information, it should be used to design better policies that help students in the long run. Why do you admit thousands of students to education programs when there’s already an excess of teachers in most provinces? Why are doctoral students in some disciplines accepted in high numbers when there is a shortage of tenure-track positions available? While higher enrolment means more money for the university, you aren’t doing students any favours by awarding us degrees in fields already flooded with workers.
Admittedly, you’re not all bad. Some of you have recognized these problems and designed policies to address them. And, admittedly, these issues aren’t entirely your fault. The provincial governments, and an absent federal presence in education policy, are also to blame, as are administrative staff, professors, and students themselves. But you’re supposed to be the leaders in this failing group project. You can set policy that promotes better learning outcomes for your students.
I know you aren’t exactly rolling in the dough right now, and you’ve seen your financial support from the government go down in the last decade. What’s more, poor employment prospects for youth have driven up enrolment rates, as students pursue second, sometimes third, degrees. But the key to making our education more worthwhile doesn’t depend on financial solutions to the problems.
What if you all worked within your provinces to create a more differentiated system of universities, specializing in the areas at which your institutions excels? If schools were differentiated by research versus teaching intensity, undergraduate versus graduate focus, or what special programs they offer, such as co-op or technical training, students could choose the school that best suits their career ambitions.
On the topic of technical training, creating academic versus applied streams in certain disciplines would be an effective way to ensure those students who wish to pursue a career in academia are learning the knowledge they need, while students who hope to enter the labour market upon graduation can learn the skills their employers desire. Partnerships between local colleges and employers can help facilitate these programs.
If nothing else, supply prospective students with all the information they need to make their education decisions—and let that information guide policy made by the university. Graduates will be best able to service the needs of the labour market if we can be confident we are earning degrees in high-demand fields, and program selection and admissions should reflect those realities.
At the end of the day, I know you care about us. These problems keep you up as late as our crappy closing shifts at the bar. I met Allan Rock, president of the University of Ottawa, last year, and by the end of our brief chat, he made it clear to me he cares just as much about the future of university education as I do. You all do—how could you not? We’re your students, employees-to-be, and the future of this country. So please, don’t let another couple hundred thousand of us walk across the stage on graduation day without doing something to make our degrees worth more than the paper they are printed on.
