It's that time again--time for a short PSE round-up for the past month!
In Canada, a great deal of attention was paid to the most recent State of the Nation report released at the end of June by the Science, Technology and Innovation Council. A number of articles addressed the "innovation deficit" that Canada faces, which is seen as an impediment to Canada's progress in the knowledge economy. And of course, explicit connections were made to Canadian universities (and university graduates) and their role in this form of economic development.
One interesting point I want to mention here is that Canada really does have a (relatively) long history of producing "reports" and "commissions" on the subject of R&D and what would now be called "technology transfer" or in some cases, "knowledge translation". For decades the critique has been put forward that Canadian business simply isn't innovative enough, or that Canadian businesses don't take enough risks. The Lamontagne commission in the late 1960s/early 1970s brought attention to the same problem. Government programs and policies have apparently failed to make a difference, as this article discusses.
Canadian Aboriginal education also received attention this past month in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Assembly of First Nations in Moncton, New Brunswick; the Vancouver Sun ran a series of editorials on the issue, and these as well as a number of articles took up Shawn Atleo's criticisms on the subject. Since Canada's indigenous groups--First Nations, Métis, and Inuit--have the lowest proportional enrolment and graduation in PSE nationally, the criticisms are well-founded.
In the UK, the Sutton Trust released a report, "Degrees of Success", that examined undergraduate admissions at Oxford and Cambridge universities. The report showed that "[f]our schools and one college sent more students to Oxbridge over three years than 2,000 schools and colleges across the UK". These results were taken by a number of commentators as a sign that accessibility in the UK is still heavily skewed by socioeconomic class at the primary and secondary levels. In other words, it matters where you go to secondary school, more so than whether you receive high A-level grades. These critiques are all the more potent at a time when PSE policy in the UK is being radically re-vamped along marketised lines, with most universities raising tuition close to the full £9,000 now allowed by the government.
And lastly, as most readers will be aware the United States has been undergoing a political and economic crisis that's reached fever pitch as the month of July draws to a close. The US debt limit must be lifted by Tuesday, August 2nd, and the Republicans seem to be taking this time to blackmail the President; indeed, it looks like they've created a situation where Obama must take responsibility for debts racked up by his predecessor/s, whilst ceding to Republican demands in the moment and ultimately accepting that his chances of re-election have been reduced to, practically, nil.
In the midst of this maelstrom, the Pell Grant program (among other initiatives) has been on the chopping block in various versions of the debt deal that have been proposed thus far. Though the Pell program is so far preserved, federal student aid programs have already been targeted for "savings" in the past and this is likely to continue as cost-cutting measures are introduced.
UPDATE from the Chronicle of Higher Ed: "Debt-Ceiling Deal Provides $17-Billion for Pell Grants".
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As a side note, my short contribution to University of Venus piece on UBC Fulbright Scholar Rumana Manzur was re-published in the Guardian UK online, on July 13th. This month we also heard part of the sad conclusion to Rumana's story, which is that she has been permanently blinded by the wounds inflicted on her by her husband. You can make a donation to help Rumana, using this web page.
Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
The Month in Higher Ed News (June, 2011)
It's been a very busy month, so I thought I'd try something new--a "round-up" of some of the biggest news stories in post-secondary education, and also little bit about what I've been up to (on this site, around the web, and even in the "offline world"!).
In Canada, Statistics Canada recently released Education Matters: Insights on Education, Learning and Training in Canada, including the results from the last (not latest--last) cycle of the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS). This was the best available data source for looking longitudinally at Canadian students' post-secondary choices and their post-degree career paths, so the survey's cancellation is a big loss for Canadian PSE policy making.
It was a big month for the provincial government in Ontario with many education announcements rolled out across the province, including a five-year plan for PSE called Putting Students First. Accessibility will certainly be the emphasis; the government (if re-elected) plans to add another 60,000 student spaces, 6,000 of them in Masters and Ph.D programs. There were capital funding announcements as well, including a new Engineering building for York, science lab upgrades for UT Mississauga, and a new Liberal Arts building for McMaster (which has had a private donor secured since 2007). The government also announced its continued support for the expansion of accessibility initiative Pathways to Education.
Graduation season in Canada brought with it a number of articles (and a book) critiquing Canadian universities and questioning of the value of post-secondary education, particularly in the face of rising student debt loads. The current (disheartening) career situation for post-secondary graduates is influenced by generational/historical economic trends, and reflected in the negative news coverage and the ongoing debate about the role of the university in preparing young people for (economic) life.
And lastly, Canadian mathematicians have continued with their critiques of NSERC's key Discovery Grants competition, its review system and award allocation results. They argue that while Canada has gone out of its way to establish prestigious faculty positions (such as the Canada Research Chairs and Canada Excellence Research Chairs), the funding arrangements at NSERC leave many world-class researchers without adequate resources. NSERC has responded, arguing that the reaction to the funding changes has been mostly positive and that the mathematics community is largely to blame for its own misfortune.
June also brought two major, and highly anticipated, policy developments overseas--one in the U.S. and one in the U.K.
In the United States, the final revised version of the Gainful Employment legislation was released on Thursday, June 2. This policy is designed to regulate the private, for-profit colleges that often exploit low-income and otherwise disadvantaged students. The for-profit colleges have put a lot of cash and effort into lobbying against this legislation. However in spite of its potential benefits, some of the less positive implications of the policy could extend into the rest of the PSE "sector" in the U.S.
In the UK, the long-awaited, much-decried government White Paper on PSE was released this week to an immediate volley of critiques. Though I have yet to read all 83 pages of it myself, there's already plenty of commentary to check out as well as existing analyses of the marketisation and privatisation tactics being employed by the U.K. government (including the short one I wrote in May).
Also in the UK, AC Grayling's new private liberal arts university received huge amounts of flak from various quarters, including accusations that they'd copied syllabuses (syllabi?) from other institutions.
...And a little bit closer to home...
At the beginning of the month I was at Congress in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where I presented at two different associations' conferences. The first presentation was on graduate education (for the Canadian Sociological Association), and the second was about media coverage of the Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC), for the Canadian Communication Association. I posted a link to the CERC presentation (on Prezi) here. Congress was a great opportunity to "bump into" people I already knew, and also to meet some of those Tweeps I hadn't yet seen in person.
After more or less successfully using Prezi for the first time at Congress, I wrote two blog posts for Jo Vanevery's blog, here and here.
From June 16 to 18 I attended WorldViews Conference on Media and Higher Education, in Toronto. This month's posts here at Speculative Diction included three live blogs from WorldViews (day 1, day 2 and day 3) as well as two follow-up posts on universities and the media (you can read them here and here if you haven't yet seen them).
Later in the month I was very pleased to be recruited to University of Venus blog as a regular contributor; soon afterward I collaborated with Lee Skallerup, Afshan Jafar and Mary Churchill, on a series of written responses to the attack on UBC scholar Rumana Manzur by her husband in Bangladesh.
In Canada, Statistics Canada recently released Education Matters: Insights on Education, Learning and Training in Canada, including the results from the last (not latest--last) cycle of the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS). This was the best available data source for looking longitudinally at Canadian students' post-secondary choices and their post-degree career paths, so the survey's cancellation is a big loss for Canadian PSE policy making.
It was a big month for the provincial government in Ontario with many education announcements rolled out across the province, including a five-year plan for PSE called Putting Students First. Accessibility will certainly be the emphasis; the government (if re-elected) plans to add another 60,000 student spaces, 6,000 of them in Masters and Ph.D programs. There were capital funding announcements as well, including a new Engineering building for York, science lab upgrades for UT Mississauga, and a new Liberal Arts building for McMaster (which has had a private donor secured since 2007). The government also announced its continued support for the expansion of accessibility initiative Pathways to Education.
Graduation season in Canada brought with it a number of articles (and a book) critiquing Canadian universities and questioning of the value of post-secondary education, particularly in the face of rising student debt loads. The current (disheartening) career situation for post-secondary graduates is influenced by generational/historical economic trends, and reflected in the negative news coverage and the ongoing debate about the role of the university in preparing young people for (economic) life.
And lastly, Canadian mathematicians have continued with their critiques of NSERC's key Discovery Grants competition, its review system and award allocation results. They argue that while Canada has gone out of its way to establish prestigious faculty positions (such as the Canada Research Chairs and Canada Excellence Research Chairs), the funding arrangements at NSERC leave many world-class researchers without adequate resources. NSERC has responded, arguing that the reaction to the funding changes has been mostly positive and that the mathematics community is largely to blame for its own misfortune.
June also brought two major, and highly anticipated, policy developments overseas--one in the U.S. and one in the U.K.
In the United States, the final revised version of the Gainful Employment legislation was released on Thursday, June 2. This policy is designed to regulate the private, for-profit colleges that often exploit low-income and otherwise disadvantaged students. The for-profit colleges have put a lot of cash and effort into lobbying against this legislation. However in spite of its potential benefits, some of the less positive implications of the policy could extend into the rest of the PSE "sector" in the U.S.
In the UK, the long-awaited, much-decried government White Paper on PSE was released this week to an immediate volley of critiques. Though I have yet to read all 83 pages of it myself, there's already plenty of commentary to check out as well as existing analyses of the marketisation and privatisation tactics being employed by the U.K. government (including the short one I wrote in May).
Also in the UK, AC Grayling's new private liberal arts university received huge amounts of flak from various quarters, including accusations that they'd copied syllabuses (syllabi?) from other institutions.
...And a little bit closer to home...
At the beginning of the month I was at Congress in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where I presented at two different associations' conferences. The first presentation was on graduate education (for the Canadian Sociological Association), and the second was about media coverage of the Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC), for the Canadian Communication Association. I posted a link to the CERC presentation (on Prezi) here. Congress was a great opportunity to "bump into" people I already knew, and also to meet some of those Tweeps I hadn't yet seen in person.
After more or less successfully using Prezi for the first time at Congress, I wrote two blog posts for Jo Vanevery's blog, here and here.
From June 16 to 18 I attended WorldViews Conference on Media and Higher Education, in Toronto. This month's posts here at Speculative Diction included three live blogs from WorldViews (day 1, day 2 and day 3) as well as two follow-up posts on universities and the media (you can read them here and here if you haven't yet seen them).
Later in the month I was very pleased to be recruited to University of Venus blog as a regular contributor; soon afterward I collaborated with Lee Skallerup, Afshan Jafar and Mary Churchill, on a series of written responses to the attack on UBC scholar Rumana Manzur by her husband in Bangladesh.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Interesting Critique...
...of the latest clutch of Higher Ed books to drop into the market. The "Failed University" is becoming the topic-du-jour for those looking for a fresh target on which to pin national and economic failure.
An interesting point here is the continuing segregation of colleges and universities into the "haves" and the "have-nots", with the student populations at these schools reflecting this divide in terms of their socio-economic status (for example). Underprivileged students are coming in to an "accessible" system where they find that not all "access" is equal, particularly at for-profit institutions that charge high tuition and enable students to rack up many thousands of dollars in debt (as we have seen recently in the U.S.).
This is an important point--and I agree with it. However, I think another important thing to remember is that "higher education", particularly the university, was an elite institution--more or less--for its entire history up until about 50 to 60 years ago. And structurally this is still the case today.
In Canada, this meant small institutions with religious affiliations, where funding came from student tuition and private donations. Not until the post-WWII period, with the Veterans' Rehabilitation Act, did Canadians see an accessibility initiative anything like what we have in place today; and in the period from the end of the 50s to the beginning of the 70s, enrolments tripled.
Have we really created planned/considered structural solutions that reflect these significant changes to enrolment, and the drive to "accessibility"? Or have we merely tried to extend the old, elite model to more people--negating its past function, without acknowledgment that we've done so? What will we substitute for this model--and why, after 50 years of increasing massification and its deep consequences, are we still asking?
We know there has been a change in signification--a Bachelor's degree simply doesn't "mean" what it used to in the past. Some people even talk about graduate market glut (another jobs/skills mismatch?), even as others build arguments about why a university degree is "still worth it". But as I argued in my previous posts about tenure, I'm not sure we're really acknowledging the extent of the changes that have occurred--or indeed the ways in which higher ed is repeating mistakes made in the past with the primary and secondary education systems. "Worth it for whom?" is only the first and most obvious question.
The critique of socio-economic class reproduction--one so frequently levelled at national, public school systems--is now being targeted at universities and colleges. I think we need to ask: why are the problems persisting and the same critiques being offered? Why have we not solved this problem in primary and secondary education? If we haven't "fixed" the first 12 years of education--can we expect to manage the postsecondary problem successfully? And is is really the best approach to simply attack the existing system--as we are seeing now with universities?
An interesting point here is the continuing segregation of colleges and universities into the "haves" and the "have-nots", with the student populations at these schools reflecting this divide in terms of their socio-economic status (for example). Underprivileged students are coming in to an "accessible" system where they find that not all "access" is equal, particularly at for-profit institutions that charge high tuition and enable students to rack up many thousands of dollars in debt (as we have seen recently in the U.S.).
This is an important point--and I agree with it. However, I think another important thing to remember is that "higher education", particularly the university, was an elite institution--more or less--for its entire history up until about 50 to 60 years ago. And structurally this is still the case today.
In Canada, this meant small institutions with religious affiliations, where funding came from student tuition and private donations. Not until the post-WWII period, with the Veterans' Rehabilitation Act, did Canadians see an accessibility initiative anything like what we have in place today; and in the period from the end of the 50s to the beginning of the 70s, enrolments tripled.
Have we really created planned/considered structural solutions that reflect these significant changes to enrolment, and the drive to "accessibility"? Or have we merely tried to extend the old, elite model to more people--negating its past function, without acknowledgment that we've done so? What will we substitute for this model--and why, after 50 years of increasing massification and its deep consequences, are we still asking?
We know there has been a change in signification--a Bachelor's degree simply doesn't "mean" what it used to in the past. Some people even talk about graduate market glut (another jobs/skills mismatch?), even as others build arguments about why a university degree is "still worth it". But as I argued in my previous posts about tenure, I'm not sure we're really acknowledging the extent of the changes that have occurred--or indeed the ways in which higher ed is repeating mistakes made in the past with the primary and secondary education systems. "Worth it for whom?" is only the first and most obvious question.
The critique of socio-economic class reproduction--one so frequently levelled at national, public school systems--is now being targeted at universities and colleges. I think we need to ask: why are the problems persisting and the same critiques being offered? Why have we not solved this problem in primary and secondary education? If we haven't "fixed" the first 12 years of education--can we expect to manage the postsecondary problem successfully? And is is really the best approach to simply attack the existing system--as we are seeing now with universities?
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