Posts tagged with world.

Canadian unis don't produce many PhDs. So what?

Joey Coleman, January 6, 2010 at 10:51 AM

 

The Conference Board of Canada released its annual report card on education yesterday. The report, available online, says we are doing very well in all areas of education with the exception of producing PhDs. 

 

The Conference Board reported Canada is No. 1 for college graduates and fifth of out the 17 countries surveyed for the percentage of the population with a university degree.

 

Combined, 48.3 per cent of our population has completed a higher education program. The four other countries with a higher percentage of the population holding university degrees are not even close.

 

This is because their college graduation rates are horrendous. Whereas 23.7 per cent of Canadians have completed college, only 2.4 per cent of Norwegians have. Though Norway holds No. 1 for university grads with 31.9 per cent (compared to Canada's 24.6 per cent) this figure, when combined with their college output, puts them at more than 15 percentage points behind Canada.

 

The other three countries beating Canada in the university table, the U.S. (30.9), Netherlands (29.1), and Denmark (25.5), all languish in the college table with percentages of 9.4, 1.7, and 6.7 respectively. 

 

When the complete higher education picture is presented, Canada is not just competing with its peers; we're beating them!

 

However, not all looks good in the report; Canada is dead last among the 17 countries for the number of PhD graduates our universities are producing. This seems like a dire problem when looking at the snapshot presented in the report. If we were a country such as Australia, geographically isolated from other developed nations, it would be a dire concern.

 

But we are not Australia; we enjoy the advantage of sharing a border with a country hosting the greatest doctoral universities in the world. 

Canadians have access to these universities and hundreds of our brightest minds attend top-tier American universities to earn their PhD.

 

Universities will suggest this problem, like all others in higher education, can be solved if governments just shovelled more no-strings-attached money in their direction. Instead, the government should look at a two-pronged approach to addressing this non-crisis problem.

 

The first is to create a national vision for higher education; we need to decide where PhD programs will be taught and what disciplines those PhD programs will teach. The last thing Canada needs is more English Literature PhDs stirring lattes at Starbucks.

 

The second, which can be quickly implemented, is to create a funding program for Canadian citizens pursuing graduate education outside of Canada. We live in a global world and we need more Canadian expatriates building the relationships needed to further Canada's interests outside our borders.

 

In the end, it's better to have the world's most educated population than to have the most PhDs in the world while lagging in all other measurements.

(Poll: Does Canada need more PhDs?)

Tagged with university, education, world, college, conference, canada, phd, board, report, higher | Comments (25) |

An idea from Qatar: global accreditation

Joey Coleman, November 20, 2009 at 4:44 PM

 

This week, I was attending the first World Innovation Summit in Education conference in Doha, Qatar.

 

Hosted and financed by the Qatar Foundation, an arms-length government agency, the conference is bringing together 1,000 of the world's brightest and most influential minds in all levels of education to discuss best practices, learn from others, and return to their home countries inspired to improve education.

 

The travel costs, accommodation, and meals for all delegates (including journalists) are covered by the Qatar Foundation.

 

The stated goal of the Foundation is to create a "Davos for education." Dr. Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani, chairman of WISE, told journalists from over 50 countries covering the conference there is a void that needs to be filled. Noting there are international gatherings for economic and political leaders, he said a gathering of education leaders is needed to further societies around the world.

 

WISE is unlike most higher education conferences I've attended. There are representatives from around the world at the conference. The conference does have a significant number of delegates from Western countries, but there is a strong effort to involve representatives of developing countries. I've noted a large number of delegates from Africa and South America.

 

Only one of the six WISE awards, given to education projects in three categories, is going to a project in a developed nation. This reflects the stated goal of the conference to focus on initiatives that can be implemented in some of the world's poorest nations.

 

One of the many ideas discussed during the conference was a global accreditation body for universities.

 

One of many higher education challenges facing developing nations is they have limited or no means to ensure degrees granted in their countries will be accepted outside their borders. This is a major problem in the era of globalization when people need to have the credentials to work anywhere in the world.

A global accreditation body would create a method for developing nations to communicate the value of their degrees and provide these nations a method to measure the quality of their university programs.

 

It is a good idea.

 

To put this in a Canadian context, we often say that we have the most educated taxi drivers in the world. We have people holding PhDs from the developing world who cannot get jobs in their fields because their education is not recognized in Canada.

 

Why? There are many reasons, but the lack of ability to measure the quality of foreign degrees and ensure they meet Canadian standards is a major part.

 

It's not only foreign institutions which stand to benefit from an accreditation body.

 

Some Canadian degrees are not accepted by other Canadian institutions. A well known example of this, as reported by Erin Millar, is Capilano University in British Columbia.

 

Capilano degrees are not accepted for graduation programs at many of Canada's top universities. These same degrees are recognized by some American universities and will, pending successful completion of accreditation with the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, soon be recognized by all major American universities.

 

The creation of a voluntary non-profit, low-cost, global accreditation program will solve these Canadian problems and have benefits worldwide. It's something Canadian universities should get behind.

 

For more on the WISE conference, visit their website at http://www.wise-qatar.com

 

Tagged with education, qatar, in, accreditation, global, summit, innovation, world | Comments (7) |