COMMENTARY

(What) to Be, or What Not to Be

May 7, 2010

WATSON SCOTT SWAIL, President & CEO, Educational Policy Institute

This past week I was privileged to speak with the faculty and Board of Governors of Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. Fanshawe College is an example of a decades-old institution that has undergone massive growth in the new millennium. Today, Fanshawe serves 16,000 full-time students and approximately 30,000 part-time students. The campus is immaculate; state-of-the-art, with many buildings under five years of age. It is a pleasant site. It feels more like a university than a college.

Fanshawe, like many other institutions, wants to stay ahead of the curve. But that’s particularly challenging to do when you aren’t sure what the curve is. Think about it: the community college, more than university level for sure, is more vocationally aligned to the workforce than any other level. But that only helps if you understand how the vocational world is shifting. Sure, we know that manufacturing has offshored, but that leaves a whole lot of business and industry to consider. We are often told that, in this knowledge society, employees will be required to shift jobs multiple times, and even shift careers. Economists and policymakers boasted about people changing jobs every 3-5 years, and that they would have 7 “careers” in their lives. That was dramatic thinking on their behalf, and those types of statements play well in MacLean’s and Time magazine. This discussion is akin to the boasting of 70-80 hour work weeks—almost no one does it, but for some insane reason, it is an ego stroker to suggest you work harder than the next person. There is nothing wonderful about working that much harder because it has an ego charge to it—I think that means you aren’t doing your job well enough, for the most part. READ MORE...

Canadian full-time students in undergraduate programs faced the same increase in tuition fees (+3.6%) for the 2009/2010 academic year as they did a year earlier. On average, undergraduate students paid $4,917 in tuition fees in 2009/2010, compared with $4,747 in 2008/2009. In comparison, between August 2008 and August 2009, inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) declined 0.8%. During the same 12-month period in the previous year, the CPI rose 3.5%.

Source: Stats Can

THE NEWS

Too early for e-textbooks in Ontario, McQuinty says
By The Canadian Press, Toronto Star
It'll be some years before Ontario follows California's lead and starts phasing out school textbooks to replace them with digital media, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday. Toronto trustee Michael Coteau wants the school board to start phasing out hard-copy textbooks in middle and secondary schools within five years to save publishing costs. McGuinty said that will likely happen eventually, but he's worried not enough families are equipped to make the switch to electronic textbooks or other digital media.

Montessori students advance at their own pace
By Sarah McGinnis, The Calgary Herald
Teacher Heather Lister wanders between the clusters of kids sprinkled throughout her classroom at Killarney School, answering questions and checking results. But for the most part, it's up to her students to decide what they'll study today. Killarney School is one of three schools in the Calgary Board of Education offering a Montessori program. Developed by Italy's first female doctor, Maria Montessori, a century ago, it focuses on independent learning. Classrooms are grouped not by grade, but by the developmental periods of children. Lister's classroom, for instance, includes students in grades 1 to 3. The approach allows teachers to develop longer-term relationships with the students, say supporters.

Lost week of school not good for students
By The Daily News
School districts across B.C. are being forced to make changes that seem counter-intuitive to providing the best education possible for students in this province. Nanaimo-Ladysmith trustees are considering a change in the school calendar next year to cut $500,000 from a projected $2.8-million deficit. Schools would be closed for an additional week next year if trustees approve this move. To compensate for the extended closure in Nanaimo, a few minutes would be added to each school day. The idea that adding nine minutes of learning will make up for a missed week of instruction is just plain silly.

 Career-colleges students’ crushing debt costs taxpayers millions
By Elizabeth Church, Globe and Mail
Students at private colleges are twice as likely to miss student-loan payments as their counterparts at public colleges and universities, costing taxpayers more than $227-million in a recent three-year period, according to a Globe and Mail investigation. Career colleges, which account for the majority of private postsecondary institutions in Canada, are a booming business. They are fuelled by the promise of quick training and boast ads that all but guarantee a job on graduation. But a disproportionate number of students are leaving these schools with crushing debt, saddling taxpayers with the cost and calling into question the value of that education.

U of W to become world-wide hub for indigenous development
By Staff writer, Winnipeg Free Press
The University of Winnipeg is about to become a world-wide hub for indigenous development. President Lloyd Axworthy announced this morning that U of W will join a world network of 22 universities which use money from the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation to offer a master’s degree in development practice. The master’s program brings together students from a wide variety of disciplines to tackle issues such as extreme poverty, climate change, and human rights. Axworthy said U of W will attract about 25 students from around the world annually, beginning in 2011, and serve as an international research centre for indigenous research.

Trent University approves new vision
By Trent News Release
The Trent University board of governors approved a Multi-Year Enrolment and Retention Plan (ERP), which provides a framework for Trent to grow its enrolment in Oshawa for the next three years and strategically boost the University’s overall student numbers at both campuses by 6 per cent. The ERP will see total enrolment at Trent grow from its current base of 7,817 (2009-10) to 9,369 students (2012-2013). An important priority in the growth plan is the continued promotion of Trent’s expanded presence in the Durham region and the eastern GTA, where it intends to widely promote its full time and part time degree programs and electives.  

After fierce debate, Taiwan will enroll students from Mainland China
By The Chronicle of Higher Education
Students from mainland China will soon be able to study in Taiwanese universities after Taiwanese lawmakers agreed over the weekend on compromises to settle a bitter and longstanding dispute over the issue, The Taipei Times reported. The Democratic Progressive Party agreed to withdraw its opposition as long as the Ministry of Education accepted extensive amendments that would, among other things, prevent Chinese citizens from working in Taiwan after graduation. Opponents have argued that students from the mainland could flood Taiwan's small higher-education system and snatch up the best jobs if allowed to enter the work force.

A campus where unlearning is first
By Michael Slackman, The New York Times
When Rafik Gindy graduated from high school, he knew he wanted to become an engineer. So he enrolled at the American University in Cairo and prepared to immerse himself in math and science.  But the university had a different idea. Who am I? What does it mean to be human? These are the kinds of questions posed to undergraduate students entering this 90-year-old university during what the president, David D. Arnold, called a first year of “disorientation.” During disorientation, the students — 85 percent of them Egyptians — are taught to learn in ways quite at odds with the traditional method of teaching in this country, where instructors lecture, students memorize and tests are exercises in regurgitation.

In India, setting the terms of engagement for foreign universities
By Shailaja Neelakantan, The Chronicle of Higher Education
On Tuesday, India's prime minister sent Parliament the latest version of a long-discussed bill intended to let foreign universities set up shop here, but the requirements set out in the legislation seem likely to provoke controversy. The conditions are also likely to deter some institutions from considering moves into India, academics here and elsewhere agree. The draft bill stipulates, among other things, that the federal government has final say in approving any foreign university seeking to operate in India. It also states that foreign institutions should have been accredited in their home countries for at least 20 years.

The Swail Letter (May 2010).
In this issue: Trends in International Education Enrollment.