Report urges boost to grad rates

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This article was published 19/03/2018 (2903 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba colleges must improve their overall graduation rates by 15 per cent in just five years, a new report concludes.

The generational review, to be released today by Education Minister Ian Wishart, says the province’s colleges must spearhead the drive to catch up with the type of post-secondary success other provinces have experienced.

Higher Education Strategy Associates, which is based in Toronto, wrote a 200-page report that concludes Manitoba’s lowest-national Indigenous graduation rates must also increase by 20 per cent in those five years. The report cost the provincial government $207,000.

“Manitoba’s population significantly lags the national average in post-secondary attainment. It is our belief that the system needs to grow to accommodate more learners; that the primary instrument of growth should be community colleges, and the primary (though by no means only) target for growth should be Indigenous youth,” the report concludes.

“A reasonable goal would be to aim to increase the number of college graduates system-wide by 15 per cent over the next five years, and the number of Indigenous graduates by 20 per cent,” the consultant said.

Manitoba has a post-secondary attainment rate of 62 per cent among 25- to 44-year-olds, compared with the national average of 72 per cent. Manitoba’s Indigenous post-secondary attainment rate is 43 per cent, which is the lowest in Canada.

The report looked at Red River College in Winnipeg, Assiniboine Community College in Brandon and University College of the North in Thompson and The Pas.

The consultant urged Wishart to scrap the province’s traditional micromanaging of community colleges. Instead, it suggests setting specific goals and success targets for graduation rates and meeting the government’s economic development needs. It recommends evaluating the results every three years and tailoring provincial funding accordingly.

Funding and/or tuition fees must increase to cover this growth, although the consultant did not offer numbers. Overhauled funding should be calculated on the widely differing costs of each program, and on the success of each program’s graduation rates.

“Expenditure seems to be largely a function of fluctuating day-to-day politics, with favoured projects or institutions having a first claim on resources,” the consultant said. “The Manitoba government has never given either the sector or individual institutions missions or goals to which they can be held accountable.

“To borrow a hockey metaphor, colleges need to train ‘where the puck will be, not where it is.’ For this precise reason, it is important that college missions are aligned at least to some degree with provincial economic development goals,” the review says.

Red River College is criticized for its 61 per cent completion rate, which is about 10 points lower than both ACC and comparable community colleges in other provinces.

“If there is an area where Red River College needs to focus its attention, it is here. In a very real sense, the success of the college system in Manitoba is dependent on the success of Red River College,” the review says.

The review makes little mention of universities, which are expected to be the subject of another value-for-money audit. The key recommendation is to make colleges the dominant area of post-secondary growth.

The consultant doesn’t name names nor does it cite individual political parties, but makes clear that the former NDP government micromanaged every new program or changes to existing programs, and did so very slowly, yet set no overall expectations. It takes nine months to approve or reject new programs, but the report says it should take 10 days.

“Institutions being responsible for achieving specific goals is nearly entirely lacking. And the main reason why this is so lies in the fact that the province itself does not set goals,” the review says.

There is no formal college system, the consultant says. There are only two community colleges: Red River and Assiniboine. Red River has 70 per cent of the province’s spaces. University College of the North and Universite de Saint-Boniface are university-college hybrids, and Manitoba Institute of Trades and Techology is a high school-college hybrid.

The review recommends that Red River, Assiniboine and UCN take charge of specific low-population regions of Manitoba to provide education services, which they are already doing informally.

The consultant makes remarkable statements about Manitoba’s “unique” ability to attract foreign students.

“By provincial policy, any international student who completes a program of study of at least one year in length is deemed eligible to be included on the list of provincial nominees to be granted Canadian citizenship,” the review says. “This is, by any standard, an extraordinary inducement to attend a Manitoba post-secondary institution, and (arguably) a specific inducement to attend one which delivers programs of 52-week duration.

“Without overdramatizing, it is not going too far to say that college education in Manitoba… is one of the fastest and most reliable means to obtain Canadian citizenship,” the report points out.

The consultant notes that faculty at Red River and Assiniboine are paid less than their peers across the country, but sees that as a sign of good management, not a weakness.

The review devotes 161 of its 200 pages to examining each school in intricate detail, particularly Red River. But it cites concerns for UCN, and dumps hot-button issues on Wishart’s desk..

In likely its most controversial advice about UCN, the consultant says the unique elders council should become advisory in nature, rather than an equal governing partner to the governing council and learning council.

UCN has kept the same programs, thus saturating the labour market in some areas while ignoring other labour market needs, and has not worked with major employers such as Manitoba Hydro, Vale, HudBay Minerals, and Canadian Kraft Paper, the report says.

“Even when specific private sector employers’ needs were identified, UCN opted not to work with such employers to devise a strategy for moving forward.”

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca