The Canadian Council on Learning released a report (LINK) today outlining the increasingly complex options available to post-secondary students. They argue that evolutionary and legislative changes have blurred the binary system of public universities granting degrees and public colleges granting diplomas. The rise in degree-granting at colleges, polytechnics, applied programs in universities, private and faith-based institutions, international institutions operating in Canada and indigenous institutes have created a broader sector that is more complicated and is exacerbating pathway mobility for students.
The report is an interesting read all together, but I found the part on institutional differentiation to be the most interesting part, particularly considering the great interest the Province has shown recently in promoting differentiation amongst Ontario universities. CCL makes the case that universities do not always set themselves apart from one another, and in fact sometimes have a tendency to do the opposite. They argue that isomorphism in which institutions emulate the same qualities (such as practical curriculum) and academic drift in which institutions attempt to emulate the qualities of prestigious universities can be responsible for this lack of differentiation. The authors of the HEQCO-sponsored publication Academic Transformation make a similar argument – that financial incentives from both the federal and provincial government to expand research and graduate capacity have caused all universities to adopt the research-intensive model and have had the unintended negative consequence of straining resources for undergraduate teaching across the province
Students understand more than anyone that the current system of educating a growing and diverse undergraduate population in publicly-supported, research-focused universities, while aiming to have among the highest participation rates in the world, comes at an extremely high price. The status quo is a model where students and government are required to substantially increase contributions annually simply to maintain current levels of quality, and hoped-for improvements to the learning experience for students come at an even greater cost.
Undergraduate students also witness firsthand how the societal demand on the university sector for increased knowledge production creates substantial tension in resource allocation for individual professors and institutions. Though the rapid expansion in graduate education and research infrastructure has been positive from an innovation perspective, the professoriate has reduced undergraduate teaching responsibilities to balance intense demands for research productivity. Effectively, though Ontario tuition is the highest in Canada and government funding has increased in recent years, institutions are still struggling to adequately accomplish their teaching mission. Undergraduate students are directly impacted as teaching responsibilities are downloaded onto sessional lecturers and part-time instructors.
Broadly speaking, OUSA agrees that the current design of our university system is unsustainable and that greater policy leadership from the government is needed to transform our system to one that better balances the demands for a high quality and accessible learning environment for our students with an increased capacity to undertake knowledge production and innovation. We agree with greater government involvement, so long as the government is encouraging universities to differentiate rather than imposing differentiation on them. This more organic differentiation should be achieved through strategic growth planning, more effective accountability agreements, and funding of institutional priorities. At the same time, students stress that a basic level of quality in undergraduate education must be maintained across the system. This transformation has the potential to have a tremendous impact on students, and great care must be taken to ensure that the impact is not a negative one, particularly at those institutions that select research as their priority.
Furthermore, we remain concerned that many within the higher education sector have jumped to increased differentiation amongst universities as the silver bullet to solving the sustainability concerns of Ontario universities, ignoring concerns about cost inflation and alternative solutions such as transformation of the professoriate or adequate public investment in the valuable research and education missions of Ontario’s universities. While the CCL and the authors of Academic Transformation have aptly articulated the concerns of many with the differentiation of the university system, it is the core belief of OUSA that Ontario universities must transform to provide a truly accessible, affordable, accountable and high-quality education, and this transformation will require more leadership, resources and vision than merely an investment in institutionally-driven differentiation.
-Sam Andrey
