|
More of Less?
January 11, 2008
Alex Usher, Vice President, Educational Policy Institute
Credit where credit is due, and it is very definitely due to the editors at the Canadian Medical association Journal, who this week had a lovely editorial about the future of medical education in Canada. Very simply, they noted that for many years, two of Canada’s medical schools – McMaster and Calgary – have been pursuing curricula which allow their graduates to finish in three years instead of the more regular four. These schools are regularly inspected and accredited by the Canadian Medical Association, and their graduates are not known do perform worse than their colleagues at 4-year institutions when they begin practicing medicine.
Which raises the question: what’s that fourth year for?
A year of medical education is not cheap. By some estimates, that fourth year costs $170,000 in public money, not to mention the $20,000 or more in tuition students must each spend. The CMJ has simply asked the question: do we know what that this $200,000 is buying us, and should we not consider reducing the length of a degree somewhat?
The answer, of course, is: absolutely! The only thing in the way of this is the conservatism of the medical establishment itself. But in principle a rigorous comparison outcomes for these two groups of students is relatively easy to do, and an excellent study could be probably be done for less than the cost of three students taking a year of medical studies.
So, great idea, but why stop there? I can think of a whole lot of other areas we could look into. For instance:
Undergraduate Education in the Arts and Sciences:We’ve known for a few years now, thanks to the excellent work of Ernie Pascarella and Pat Terenzini, that most of the measurable cognitive gains associated with PSE seem to happen in the first two years. That’s not to say that learning doesn’t happen in years three and four: rather, it is to say that such learning as occurs is probably happening at the disciplinary level which isn’t as easily picked up by standardized tests.
Since a majority of students are not going on to grad school, how important is this disciplinary knowledge, exactly? Shortening Bachelor’s Degrees programs might save everyone money. Master’s Degrees would probably need to be lengthened in consequence, but this might be an excellent trade-off.
Trades Education. Currently in Canada, most apprenticeship programs take at least four years to complete. Yet apprenticeships in the US, Australia, the UK and Europe take much less time – typically 2 to 3 years. What is it that Canadian apprentices are supposed to be learning that takes this extra time? There’s substantial evidence that employers don’t think this extra training is necessary; one of the most important causes of non-completion in apprenticeships these days is employers offering apprentices well-paying full-time jobs that do not require journeyperson status. Shortening training periods has the potential to increase program completion substantially while at the same time creating major potential savings to governments, learners and employers.
These ideas, of course, cannot be implemented willy-nilly. They require careful thought and study, with due attention paid to actual learning outcomes which need to be studies and measured much more carefully than they have ever been in the past. These studies need to have a wide buy-in from governments and educational institutes; there’s almost no point having some institutions implement the changes and others not as it would create great difficulties for the mutual recognition of degree granted.
But most of all, conversations about learning outcomes and the most efficient ways to achieve them need to become much more central to our everyday policy discussions. We don’t need change for the sake of change, but we do need options other than the status quo or the status quo plus. Many kudos to the Canadian Medical Association Journal for pointing the way.
Enjoy the weekend.
Alex
P.S. Our friends at the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada took some exception to my characterization of their lobbying efforts on the subject of student aid and the 2008 Federal Budget. I am happy to report that even though their lobbying efforts may not have been especially public, AUCC has been working very hard in its efforts to secure renewal of the $350 million/year in mostly need-based funding that is at risk with the pending sunset of the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation.
|
