Posts tagged with mcguinty.

McGuinty: Show me the money

Joey Coleman, March 8, 2010 at 4:31 PM

 

Dalton McGuinty's Throne Speech promises a lot for Ontario post-secondary education but doesn't say where the money for these promises will come from.

 

Mr. McGuinty promises the addition of another 20,000 places at Ontario's university and colleges this September, a 50% increase in the number of international students over the next few years, and the creation of an online post-secondary institute.

 

The addition of 20,000 students to Ontario's already overcrowded post-secondary institutions is not the good news that it appears to be. With less than six months until the start of the new academic year, these students are only going to be adding to overcrowded classrooms or will be taught by sessional faculty. A first-year class of 350 can easily be expanded to 400 with the additional tuition revenue from the 50 additional students more than compensating for the hire of one or - if students are lucky - two teaching assistants to conduct seminars.

 

Further, the additional students will be plucked from the students who were not going to be admitted to university or college - meaning students with lower academic averages coming out of high school. With universities and colleges making cutbacks to student services, society is setting these students up for failure. These are the very students who will require academic and student life supports the most. The addition of more students needing student services at a time when those very services are being cut back is a recipe for disaster.

 

While the addition of 20,000 student spaces makes it look like the government is "investing" in higher education, unless there is a massive infusion of funds for these higher-need students, it is actually a disservice to both the higher education sector and society as a whole.

 

The addition of more foreign students to Ontario's universities is possible. It will require a large investment in overseas recruitment and a strategy that can compete against other countries like Australia, and other provinces. During a recent trip to Qatar, I had the opportunity to witness first-hand the effective recruitment strategy of EduNova. Ontario has a long way to go if the province is to achieve their lofty 50% enrolment goal.

 

The creation of an online institute sounds good and is overdue. The recently published book Academic Transformation offers a good road map for the province to start with. The Ontario government should serious consider partnering with Athabasca University, which has forged ahead in this direction, instead of re-inventing the wheel.

 

Overall, the promises in the Throne Speech sound good but until we know the details, it is premature to call it a commitment to post-secondary education. Already, the official opposition is noting that McGuinty has broken post-secondary promises before.

Tagged with ontario, mcguinty, throne, speech | Comments (14) |

Ontario needs to prevent college strike

Joey Coleman, February 1, 2010 at 3:36 PM

The clock is ticking and the question is if anyone at Queen's Park takes action in the next ten days to prevent a strike at Ontario's community colleges.

 

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents full-time instructors at Ontario's public colleges, announced a February 11 strike deadline at a news conference today. 

 

Interestingly, the union has moderated its rhetoric and is even willing to accept binding arbitration to prevent a strike. "First and foremost, we want to reach a negotiated settlement," OPSEU bargaining chair Ted Montgomery said in a news release. "If the Colleges won't bargain that, we are willing to send all our outstanding issues to binding arbitration. The Colleges, however, must agree."

 

The announcement by the union that it is willing to accept binding arbitration - a likely outcome if a strike happens -  puts the ball firmly in the court of Ontario's colleges and their political masters in Premier Dalton McGuinty's office. 

 

(Colleges do not have the autonomy from government that universities enjoy and the government can issue directives requiring actions by the institutions - see Hassum v. Contestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, 2008 CanLII 12838 [ON S.C.])

 

The question now is what the Premier plans to do. So far, he has offered empty platitudes calling on both sides to reach a negotiated agreement to prevent a strike. This lofty rhetoric is acceptable in most circumstances. This is not one of the those circumstances - the Premier has already poisoned the chalice by implementing flawed anti-labour provisions when his government rewrote the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act.

 

One of the primary reasons that students are caught in the crossfire was the decision by Ontario's colleges to use their newfound power in an attempt to bypass the collective bargaining process and impose a contract - power granted to them by Mr. McGuinty's government.

 

I e-mailed a spokesperson for John Milloy, Ontario's Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities, after the union announced its strike deadline. The response from the government was to send me a link to a statement  issued by the Minister on January 13, calling for the two sides to return to the bargaining table.

 

It is time for the government to do more. The government has two choices: force Ontario's colleges to accept the union's very reasonable offer of binding arbitration, or force the two sides back to the table by setting a time and location for them to meet.

 

The government should also give Ontario's senior college administrators a little more incentive to negotiate. The Minister should send a directive informing all college administrators making more than $150,000 a year - and there are a lot of them - that their pay will be cut off in the event of a strike. 

 

I'm willing to bet the threat of a strike actually hurting them - instead of helping them balance their books - will assist them to act in the best interest of students.

 

Of course, the government can continue to whistle past the graveyard like it did during the York University strike - after all, that strike didn't hurt anyone, did it?

 

[Additional information: Union bargaining chair Ted Montgomery's speaking notes provided to the media at today's news conference are available online.]

 

[Jim Wilson, Ontario's Official Opposition critic for Colleges and Universities, held a news conference this morning criticizing the government's handling of the labour situation. His remarks are available online: http://tinyurl.com/yb3gm2q.]

Tagged with strike, ontario, college, mcguinty | Comments (4) |