Where is the 'action' in PSE plan?
Published Saturday July 5th, 2008
The long-awaited plan for post-secondary education has finally been tabled, yet there seems to be something missing.
Of course you can be certain the one thing that isn't missing from this typically Liberal report is the creation of a new bureaucratic system. The Liberals want universities and colleges to be independent of government, because the less government interferes in these operations the better. At the same time, we want colleges and universities to work co-operatively together. To ensure that these independent institutions work together without a lot of government interference, the Liberals are going to create a government agency to interfere, I mean oversee, the collaboration. More government is the predictable Liberal answer to any challenge.
Why do we need to set up a separate bureaucratic agency to ensure independent institutions work together? I believe it is in the province's best interest to have collaboration between colleges and universities, but we don't need to spend out tax dollars on an agency to monitor the relationships. Let's apply some old-fashioned common sense to the issue. Why don't we make part of their funding contingent on partnership programming?
We would all like to see the colleges and universities drive innovation and research, improve student success, and community responsiveness. We could simply establish a pool of funding that could be accessed to support joint programming in those areas. No institution is going to pass up that funding, and believe me; we don't need an entirely new agency interfering with the process.
There is a noticeable absence of transformational change in the Liberals PSE report as it relates to our community colleges. The Liberals have been in power for almost two years now. They have had two budgets. Two reports on post-secondary education. They have had numerous business leaders talk about our pressing workforce needs. Yet the Liberals have brought nothing new to the table on community colleges.
Once again they have said that they will add 12,000 new spaces to our community college system, though instead of having it complete by 2011 as initially promised, they are going to do it by 2018... after the general elections of 2010, 2014 and likely 2018.
In fact, despite the "urgent need for change" described in the Liberals PSE report, the only thing that the Liberals plan to do for community colleges this year is re-designing and re-branding the system.
In other words, if we pay one of the Liberal ad agencies big bucks to give the community college system a new logo and slogan, people will want to "be... in this place." Sound familiar?
Another area that needed addressing, but that was simply glossed over, was in how to deal with rising student debt. One of the key problems in the system is that students are amassing large debts to fund their education. There are no new ways of reducing that debt in the Liberal report. In fairness, they mention a few programs that have already been announced, specifically the $10,000 tuition rebate that was brought in under the former Progressive Conservative government, but where is the revolutionary change?
Basically what the Liberals are proposing is to lobby the federal government for more money for student aid rather than anteing up with their own programs. During the 2006 general election, the Shawn Graham Liberals promised a $2,000 rebate for all first year university students, though it now appears as though this will be the last year for the program, as they are only committed to continuing through the 2008-2009 fiscal year. However, this isn't the first promise the Liberals have broken, and it likely won't be the last. Where is the new scholarship program they promised?
All told, there are 33 action items in the Liberals' PSE report. Some of them were done before the report was even implemented. Some of them could be done by the universities and colleges without government interference. Most of them are not going to happen until after the 2010 general election.
Why were they afraid to release the report?
All this begs the question, what are the Liberals planning to do with their two remaining years in office?
Robert MacLeod is a Sussex businessman, President of the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick and Chairs the Board of Directors of the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation. For more information please visit www.pcnb.ca.
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