A new vision for education

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Change may be looming on the horizon for Ontario's post-secondary education (PSE) sector.

This past summer, a discussion paper from the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities sparked a provincewide discussion between colleges, universities and other stakeholders in PSE.

The paper, entitled "Strengthening Ontario's Centres of Creativity, Innovation and Knowledge," outlined the government's vision for PSE: "(that) Ontario's colleges and universities will drive creativity, innovation, knowledge and community engagement through teaching and research," read the introduction to the paper.

The paper has people thinking about making real changes to the PSE sector in Ontario, including talks about the credit transfer system and the possibility of creating three-year degree programs at Ontario's colleges.

After the paper was released, Minister Glen Murray met with PSE stakeholders to discuss their vision for change in Ontario. Next, the Minister asked for reports — called strategic mandate agreements — from each of Ontario's 24 colleges and 20 universities. Other PSE stakeholders submitted SMAs as well. The SMAs were due to the Ministry at the end of September, and the Ministry is currently in the process of reviewing these submissions, along with the feedback received during the roundtable consultations.

Two of the hottest topics right now are three-year college degree programs and credit transfers between schools. The two issues are "highly integrated — you can't really talk about one without the other," said Tyler Epp, director of advocacy for the College Student Alliance (CSA).

Three-Year College Degrees
Currently 16 Ontario universities offer three-year degrees. Epp said that the CSA, which represents 15 colleges and 23 student associations, would love to see an expansion of the three-year college degree programs within Ontario. "It does actually help with transferability, both between the colleges and universities in Ontario and also for transfer abroad, because the three-year degree program links up more closely with the universal standard outside of Ontario."

Many countries are currently looking to Europe, which has a very different PSE system in place. Nearly 50 countries are part of the Bologna Process, which allows for educational transferability between members. The system is sometimes called 3-2-3: students can complete their Bachelor's degree in three years, their Master's in two, and their Doctorate in three. "Within that structure, you have universities and non-universities," explained Lane Trotter, Senior Vice-President, Academic, at Fanshawe. "Universities offer all of it — the three plus two plus three — and then you have the colleges, or non-universities, that offer three plus two — Bachelors and Masters — and there's full transferability between the systems."

That system is based on two main premises, he continued. The first is students' mobility — "Talk about a great premise to revamp your higher education system: it's about students, it's about mobility." The second is the labour market — ensuring people's education, training and skills are recognized in other countries.

"We have an opportunity to pay close attention to what is happening in other jurisdictions to ensure Ontario's place in the ever-changing global landscape of higher education," said Gyula Kovacs, senior media relations for the MTCU.

But maybe Ontario isn't so different, after all. In a report entitled "Facilitating College to University Transfer in the European Higher Education Area and Beyond: Opportunities for Ontario's Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology," Trotter and his coauthors found no significant difference in learning outcomes between a three-year European degree and an Ontario three-year advanced diploma — the only major differences were in transferability and the words on the paper a student receives after completing their education.

"The South Americans are looking at the European system; the Middle East is looking at the European system; Africa is looking at the European system; the Chinese are looking at the European system," said Trotter. "The only people who aren't looking at the European system are the North Americans ... The rest of the world is changing and if we don't innovate, we will not be relevant."

However, changing the name from diploma to degree would not change the scope of what is learned, Trotter clarified. "The three-year college degree is industry- driven and -focused. It's not about liberal arts education, it's about career-based education. It's about education that gets you into the workforce."

According to Kovacs, these three-year college degrees may not be suitable to every field of study, "but a revitalized approach may benefit a wider range of students than the 10 per cent of undergraduates currently enrolled in threeyear degree programs in Ontario today."

In addition to looking into offering three-year degree programs at college, the CSA has also made the recommendation to re-name the two-year college diploma an Associate degree. This would lead to increased international recognition for Ontario students, said Epp. "It wouldn't necessarily change what is learned or how it's learned, it would just change the nomenclature of the credential at the end for graduation," he said. "It would increase accessibility outside of the system for college graduates a little bit more."

Credit Transfers
Credit transfers have been a discussion topic in the PSE sector for a long time, and with the recent ground-breaking move by seven universities in Ontario to create a new credit transfer initiative for more than 20 of the most popular courses, it's something that's becoming part of many colleges' visions as well.

Ontario's government is starting to think about creating more pathways, more articulation, more transferability between colleges and universities, explained Trotter. "When students are forced to repeat education or learning that they've already done, there's a cost to that. Government has been, over the last 10 years, very serious about what they've been calling pathways to allow students to not have to do things that they've already done."

"The restrictions that have been put up in the past have clearly slowed down the system, and it's about time that it has been reviewed," said Fanshawe Student Union President Zack Dodge. "We even see it happen in our own internal family. Veronica (Barahona, FSU President 2011/12), for instance, was looking at wrapping up her post-graduate and trying to go to Western, and it was next to impossible. She was like, 'It'd be a complete waste of my time and money, because they're not seeing any value to my education so far as to what's being translated to other campuses' ... It's discouraging."

Epp added that around seven per cent of all college graduates go on to a university. "It's a very high number when you think about the successful job placement rates that college students have already; the number who choose to go on and get even more post-secondary education is fantastic."

"A credit transfer system being developed allows students to move seamlessly between institutions, giving them higher completion rates, in many cases, as well as allowing them to go into the workforce sooner and being able to reduce the amount of debt that they accumulate over the course of their post-secondary career," he continued.

With students requiring more flexibility in terms of education, the mobility of credentials and credits is another building block the government must consider to improve the international mobility of Ontario graduates, said Kovacs. "Support for improvements to the quality and affordability of education and the student learning experience are key to expanding the choices students have in content, delivery and learning models."

The government has already committed to helping colleges and universities develop new credit transfer pathways and provide additional supports to transfer students. In 2011, the provincial government pledged over $73 million spread over five years to implement the credit transfer system. "The Ministry will continue to work closely with its college and university partners to further implement and expand Ontario's credit transfer system," said Kovacs. For more information about how transfer works in Ontario, check out ontransfer.ca.

Looking Ahead
As of right now, the PSE sector's SMAs are still being reviewed by the government. "The implementation timeline would be dependent on approved changes," said Kovacs. "To date, no decisions have been made." With legislature currently prorogued until further notice, all discussions have been put on hold until the government is back in session.

"There might be a delay in moving forward with the credit transferability system, but this is not necessarily a negative thing," explained Fanshawe Student Union VP External Affairs Adam Gourlay, who is also the southwest director for the CSA. "It gives all parties involved — the CSA, Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, Colleges Ontario and more — a chance to come up with a plan or recommendations that will leave the government more prepared when actually implementing the system."

This is an immensely important time for change, said Trotter — this is one of those moments that only happens every decade or so. "One of those moments happened in 1965 when William Davis created the college system ... We've had some other moments along the way, maybe not as role-defining or province-defining, but we're at one of those points right now. We'll see what government does ... We'll see what the next steps are."