HANSARD
Post-Secondary Funding (Results of Recent Survey Poll)
Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services
STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
Mr. Ronald Chisholm (Chairman)
Mr. Brooke Taylor
Mr. Cecil O'Donnell
Mr. Frank Corbett
Mr. Howard Epstein
Ms. Joan Massey
Mr. Keith Colwell
Mr. Leo Glavine
Ms. Diana Whalen
[Mr. Ronald Chisholm was replaced by Mr. William Dooks.]
[Mr. Brooke Taylor was replaced by Mr. Gary Hines.]
In Attendance:
Mrs. Darlene Henry
Legislative Committee Clerk
Mr. Neil Ferguson
Legislative Counsel
WITNESSES
Dr. Colin Dodds
President, Saint Mary's University
CONSUP Chairman
Dr. Philip Hicks
President, Nova Scotia Agricultural College
CONSUP Vice-Chairman
Mr. Peter Halpin
Executive Director, Association of Atlantic Universities
Ms. Gillian Wood
Director of Government Relations
Dalhousie University
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HALIFAX, TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2005
STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
9:00 A.M.
CHAIRMAN
Mr. Ronald Chisholm
MR. NEIL FERGUSON (Legislative Counsel): Good morning, everybody. I'm Neil Ferguson, Legislative Counsel and Assistant Clerk of the House. We do not have either the chairman or the vice-chairman here this morning so the procedure is that one of the Clerks would conduct an election of an acting chairman for the purpose of this meeting only. The procedure is that somebody makes a motion and if it is passed, then off we go. It if fails, then we wait for another motion and if we are unable to elect an acting chairman, then we disperse to the call of the Clerk. I will, therefore, entertain any motion that somebody cares to make for an acting chairman for this meeting.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Frank said he will chair so I nominate Frank.
MR. LEO GLAVINE: I will second it.
MR. FERGUSON: We have a nomination. Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
We have a chairman, my job is done.
MR. FRANK CORBETT (Chairman): If my colleagues and the witnesses could bear with me. What we are going to do first is do what is commonly referred to as the ABCs, the appointments to agencies, boards and commissions. The first appointment put forward is the Cape Breton Island Housing Authority and the member put forward is Hugh MacEachen.
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MR. WILLIAM DOOKS: Mr. Chairman, to the Cape Breton Island Housing Authority, I so move Hugh MacEachen as a member.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
If it's the will of the committee, where there are multiple nominations, we'll move them en bloc. Does that bother anybody?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: No.
MR. GARY HINES: Mr. Chairman, to the Agricultural College Foundation of Nova Scotia, I so move Stephen Healy, Richard (Dick) Huggard and Sherry E. Porter as members.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
MR. DOOKS: Mr. Chairman, to the Colchester-East Hants Library Board, I so move Rob Landry and Ruby McDorman as members.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
MR. HINES: Mr. Chairman, to the Workers' Compensation Board, Department of Environment and Labour, I so move Janet Hazelton, Mary Lloyd, Carol MacCulloch, Archie MacKeigan, Deborah A. Ryan and David W. Thomson as employee representatives.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
MR. DOOKS: Mr. Chairman, to the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, Department of Justice, I so move Ernest Bolivar as commissioner and chairman.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
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The motion is carried.
MR. HINES: Mr. Chairman, to the Nova Scotia Gaming Foundation, Office of Health Promotion, I so move Jim MacCormack, Jack Novack, Theresa O'Leary, Tracy Schrans and Dave Whiting as members.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
With the appointments section of the meeting done, we will now move to our witnesses. Before we ask our witnesses to introduce themselves, I would ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves, starting with Mr. Dooks.
[The committee members introduced themselves.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Now, if the witnesses would like to introduce themselves.
DR. COLIN DODDS: My name is Colin Dodds. I'm President of Saint Mary's University, but this morning I'm here as the Chairman of CONSUP.
DR. PHILIP HICKS: My name is Philip Hicks. I'm the President of the Nova Scotia Agricultural College and I'm here in my capacity as Vice-Chairman of CONSUP.
MR. PETER HALPIN: Good morning. Peter Halpin, Executive Director, Association of Atlantic Universities.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Good morning, folks. Before I turn the floor over to you, the usual parameters we set, we usually ask the witnesses if they have a presentation to keep it within 20 minutes and then the floor will be opened to committee members for questions and answers. At some point, if it's not too intrusive, members may want to stop and ask for clarification on a point. If the witness feels that they can answer it at the time, that's fine; if not, we will move forward. With that in mind, I will turn the floor over to you, Dr. Dodds, to proceed.
DR. DODDS: Mr. Chairman, I do believe you have had a copy of our submission so I certainly don't propose to read it line by line, so I don't think I'll take the 20 minutes, I hope not anyway. I want to say, on behalf of my colleagues, great appreciation that you would take the time to hear this submission this morning and also the previous submission in terms of the coalition. I know it's a busy time of year with vacations, so we very much appreciate the opportunity to follow up on the June 28th coalition presentation.
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Included with our submission is, in fact, a piece by Stephen Lund, who I think you know, entitled "Universities matter". If we had had a chance, most recently, there has been a piece in The Globe and Mail, "Universities give education plan top marks". I think we are all aware of the importance of education at all levels to a province and the fact that over the years, Nova Scotia has become what many people call the education province, particularly at the post-secondary level, both college and university level.
Of course, as you know, we do attract a large number of students from out of province, from other parts of Canada, and also in terms of international students. On that basis, I think we are all starting to recognize the strategic importance of their investment in post-secondary education. Recently, I think you might be aware of the increase of investment the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador had in its college system and university system, particularly MUN, and something in the order of over $80 million was placed into the budgets there; some of it for research, some of it for operating and so on.
I wanted to touch on the MOU and the MOU process, ladies and gentlemen, that we've been part of, and the partnerships that have developed from that and hopefully will develop in the future. We felt that the MOU process was a very significant event in the recent history of Nova Scotia. There were some flaws in the process, and we can talk about that, but in terms of the increased funding commitment that was made and the commitment the universities made in terms of capping tuition, we felt, are very significant.
We saw this very much as a first step in the recognition of the importance of people and the importance of the investment, and the strategic investment in education and human capital. But on top of that was also a commitment which we felt was very significant in terms of research and development through NSRIT. NSRIT was created some years ago to provide matching funds, and there was a further commitment by the government to replenish the NSRIT fund to the tune of $5 million, and hopefully on an ongoing basis. We want to stress the importance of that.
But there are a lot of other things that happened that have gone beyond the MOU process in the last little while. The universities have had some very positive meetings with the Office of Economic Development, with Nova Scotia Business Inc. and with the new Department of Immigration. What we're starting to see, hopefully, is some partnerships, and partnerships recognizing, as I say, the important role that universities and the college system can play in the future of Nova Scotia. What we're finding in these meetings is, in fact, a recognition on the part of the various officials with these bodies of the key role that universities and the college system can play.
Now I wanted to come to a substantive item which was mentioned by our coalition colleagues, which was Bill C-48 and the potential of $1.5 billion that could flow across the system. Now there have been some qualifiers in the media that that $1.5 billion may not flow for some time, because of some requirements that the federal government show a budget
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surplus of $2 billion. We feel that the university system can play a leadership role in the allocation of these funds with a partnership with both levels of government and with other stakeholders, particularly our student leaders.
We feel that this funding, coupled with other commitments that we hope to achieve in terms of a dedicated transfer - and I think a lot of media attention has been devoted to this issue of dedicated transfer, and we want to show our support for that - but also a transfer that recognizes that the transfer is based not on home province of residence but is actually based on the institution and the province in which the institution is based, in which you're starting. So it's our feeling that there are two issues here, not only a dedicated transfer but a transfer that recognizes this key issue, because Nova Scotia, as an education province, attracts a lot of students from other parts of Canada. In fact, we are a net - if I can use the term - importer of students; we're a net beneficiary of students from other parts of Canada.
What we feel this transfer can do is to handle the issue of affordability, capacity-building and quality. These aspects are in the brief that we've given you. Affordability, of course, obviously on the financial side, is linked very much to issues of accessibility, particularly of groups that are under-represented in our current system. However, we do make the point in the brief that accessibility is a multi-faceted topic, it's not purely financial. There are some other issues at play there. Some of them, in fact, deal with the rural/urban situation with respect to Nova Scotia, and we'd like to talk about that, and what moves we can do in terms of retention of students in our system. There are situations where students come and attend, and then drop out of the system for a variety of reasons. So accessibility is not just purely financial, there are other issues at play, but obviously financial is a major element.
[9:15 a.m.]
In terms of other issues of capacity-building, we have to stress that if in fact the $1.5 billion to the system across the country does lead to an increase in enrolments - and currently, if you look at participation rates, Nova Scotia has very high participation rates, but there are other jurisdictions across the world that are aiming for higher participation rates. So, for example, the UK is aiming for a 50 per cent participation rate for secondary college levels, which we're not at in Nova Scotia.
If we have a similar public policy debate, and if in fact we feel that we should increase participation rates, and I hope that we would, so that every qualified - and I use the term qualified - applicant can attend university and college, well, then, we have some capacity constraints. Over the last few years, our enrolments have increased dramatically, without the increase in space and equipment. At the same time, we have an overhang of deferred maintenance, and the deferred maintenance in Nova Scotia for our university system is pegged at around $500 million. So that's a key issue for us on the capital side.
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So for us to move forward to provide the quality that Maclean's and certainly students from other parts of Canada and around the world have recognized - and we do believe that with the Internet and everything else, our students are very rational, they have lots of opportunities to seek out information, so when they take the decision to attend a university or college in Nova Scotia, it's armed with the best information that's available to them. Obviously if they're going to invest in their own education - and we acknowledge that we have high tuition rates - if they're going to make that investment, well, then, it's done on a good information flow, which must mean that they feel they're going to get a quality education.
We feel that quality can be jeopardized in the future, unless there's a further increase in investment by both federal and provincial governments in operating and in our capital, otherwise we feel we will not have the capacity to move forward and we will not have the quality maintenance that we'd like. That quality is in terms of faculty, attracting the very best faculty, at a time when there's a lot of competition for talent, when in fact we're facing the demographics of retirement of our faculty and staff. At the same time, it's our buildings and it's our equipment. So it's a totality of our post-secondary education system.
We are very conscious of disadvantaged groups, in terms of students with disabilities, Aboriginal members of First Nations, and others in our system. We are aware of one initiative, which Philip might want to talk about, which is the study-at-home program of the Agricultural College. We'd like to increase our enrolments from the rural areas. So on the accessibility side, you certainly have our commitment that this is something that's very much dear to our hearts, that we want to see all qualified Nova Scotians have that opportunity of studying at the post-secondary education level.
In terms of the MOU process, I think you're aware that universities were asked to confirm a 1 per cent productivity factor. That information now is flowing from the universities to the Department of Education. But at the same time, I wanted to stress that there are some initiatives that the universities have taken. ISI is one, Interuniversity Services Inc., founded in 1984, and we've given you some figures as to the potential savings that we have on an annual basis with ISI. A lot of people keep talking about bulk buying and things like that, well, we do a lot of that already. So that is in place.
The second one that we've co-operated on and we're going to do in the future is Nova Scotia Power, with the rate increase. We co-operated and got intervening status, along with others. By doing it co-operatively with a group, we were able to save a significant amount of legal fees, which we would not have done if we had tried to do it on our own. And of course we're getting ready for another round on that in the future. Power is a huge commitment for all our institutions, but I'll just take my own institution, for example. We spend about $1 million on electricity so if there was a 10 per cent increase, that would be $100,000; if it's 15 per cent, you're talking about $150,000. That's equivalent to about a 0.5
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per cent, in my own case, increase in tuition which is not budgeted for through the MOU process.
Another initiative we've had for a long time, in terms of saving funds and co-operating, is Novanet. I know our students are familiar with that, the ability of our students and faculty and staff to see, in fact, where books exist and to place an order for them. In fact our librarians, when they first get a request from a faculty member or whatever it is for a book purchase, will check to see where this book is available on the system first. If it's available, well, then, do we really need it in our own library or can we in fact use someone else's library. So this has allowed the development of specialized collections, which are open to our students to access, and our faculty.
Another issue we touch on in our brief is the private sector. There seemed to be some concerns raised about the involvement of the private sector. We would certainly concur with the view of the coalition that the $1.5 billion should in fact flow to publicly-funded institutions, so we would not take issue on that one. But in the world of R&D and so on, we have to recognize that increasingly the federal government initiatives, particularly for CFI, and others in fact either mandate or, if they don't mandate, they certainly strongly support commercialization. I think we might see that term perhaps in a negative sense or a pejorative sense. Commercialization is not just spinoffs of companies and so on.
I think what the government is looking for in their innovation strategy is in fact involvement and working with the private sector, working with small businesses, working with NGOs; in other words, seeing where it's possible for that research to be utilized in our communities. In my own institution, for example, we do a lot of work on workplace stress, occupational health and safety, which naturally involves working with the hospitals, working with other organizations. I wouldn't necessarily see that as commercialization. I would see that as involvement in communities, and involvement with the private sector and others in partnership. Philip, I'm sure, can talk about his work in the Agricultural College with the various resource sectors and the importance that has.
I think we have to look very carefully when we start to talk about the private sector. We'd see that as an important partner. Obviously there are concerns, which we're aware of, nationally, that come from some aspects of commercialization, and we'd be pleased to talk about those. We have those reservations ourselves at times. But we do see the private sector and the communities as important partners in our moving forward.
So, in summary, we very much welcome your interest in this topic, because we see this as another ongoing area of public debate and a public policy arena for the importance of post-secondary education. We are pleased that the federal government has recognized this, and we're pleased now that we can see that we're starting to get reinvestment at the provincial government levels; not to the extent that we would like, but at least it's starting a process. We felt that the MOU process was an important first step. There are some
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commitments in there. There is talk, for example, about deferred maintenance, and we'd like to stress the importance of that.
Overall, we feel that there is a new vibrancy amongst government and government agencies. We're starting to see more and more pieces appearing in the newspapers, not just like Stephen Lund's but there are others, recognizing that we have to reinvest in our people, and by reinvesting in our people, we're also reinvesting in our communities. We're very much part of that, my colleagues want to support that. I know our faculty, students and staff would want to support that, as well. Mr. Chairman, I have completed my brief.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I don't know if any of the other witnesses want to add anything before we go to questions. We'll go to the panel for interveners.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. EPSTEIN: Colin, thank you very much. It's good to see you here today. I want to start with what I hope is a reassurance to you and your colleagues that we agree that the universities are fundamental to what it is that the government can help out in Nova Scotia in order to try to make a better future for all of us. I think that for a long time we've been big fans of the university system here, and continue to be. We wish you well in all your endeavours.
The issues that you raised, though, are ones that are really important, and we should poke at them for a bit, I think, because it's important that we do understand them. I'd like to start with the issue of tuition and tuition increases. The MOU was a good step forward. I think we were all pleased to see that worked out. The difficulty is, of course, in the details, as it often is with something like that. I'm very happy to have seen in your brief the following statement, which you didn't read but I'm going to read into the record here, because I think it's quite crucial.
It says, "First, with regard to affordability, it is the position of CONSUP that no qualified individual should be unable to access post-secondary education because of his or her individual financial circumstances." This is a very welcome statement. I'm glad you've put it on the record. It really encapsulates what it is that our concern is. What we worry about, of course, is that tuition increases have the potential to be a barrier to access post-secondary education. I think we all recognize that talent doesn't just come from people whose families are already wealthy or part of the middle class. Talent shows up where talent shows up. Those who are in much more modest circumstances, of course, will have a very difficult time getting themselves financially organized to get into university.
So the real question I guess I have is, does this work out in practice? Is there anything you can show us in terms of any up-to-date studies or analyses that really would show that tuition is not a barrier to access?
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DR. DODDS: I think it's a very good question, Howard, you had asked. I'm a product myself of the UK and a grant-based system. So I was able to attend university, if you like, tuition-free. Something now that generations following me cannot do, because they're moving to a system similar to our own. What I would say on the issue of tuition is that certainly over the last, not so much the last year but the years previous to that, we saw a steady and at times peaking increase in enrolments in our universities, at a time when tuition was also increasing. So you had in fact the two trends going simultaneously, both in the same direction. Tuition was increasing and at times quite markedly, and at the same time enrolments were increasing and participation rates in Nova Scotia were also increasing.
[9:30 a.m.]
Now, the flip side, of course, of that is that student debt was increasing at the same time, simultaneous to that and, in some cases - and I have to stress this - our own debt in the sense that in my own university, for example, we have significant accounts receivable students who have not paid their tuition or owe us significant amounts of money. So all I can say at this point - and my colleagues could jump in - is that until this last year, where there seemed to be a peaking of enrolments, that increases in tuition did not seem to deter people's wish . . .
MR. EPSTEIN: But, Colin, here's the problem. Although to a certain extent, increasing numbers of students enrolled in the face of rising tuition might indicate that tuition is not a barrier, the real key is the focus on the class background of the students who are getting in there or even the geographic background, for that matter, because, of course, with the double cohort in Ontario, there was at least some knock-on effect for us in the Maritimes. So the increase in enrolments could at least be partly geographic, that is it could be students from Ontario or from other parts of Canada who continue to find it very attractive to come to universities in Atlantic Canada, or it could be more students from the middle class.
The real focus was, is there anything at all to indicate that tuition has not been a barrier for particularly those indigenous to the Maritimes who come from very modest financial backgrounds, and my instinct is that it almost always is. I'm wondering are the universities in any position to do any hard analysis of the financial circumstances of their students?
DR. DODDS: It's spotty. I can tell you that many of us did look very closely at the time of the double cohort and we separated out the Ontario students as a sort of separate group so that we could actually focus on where our enrolment increase was coming from. Also we separate out the international students. So we do disaggregate our data to that extent.
Certainly, we have some concerns about some under-represented groups and it's not just financial, although it might be correlated so if we take students with disabilities, for example, and if we take the numbers that we know exist from self-reporting and then we
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know what size the population is, well then that's an area where, in fact, we are not able to attract the kind of student that we could from that particular group. So we know that. On the Aboriginal side, First Nations side, again, that's an area where we need to do more work. If you would take Black Nova Scotians, I think, again, we know it's not just finance, it's other issues playing up there, but finance can be an important role.
I don't know if we have any direct data with respect to rural/urban, one of those splits. We certainly look at - each of us, I'm sure - where we recruit our students from, which high school. We know the demographic data, we know how many students are coming out of different school board systems and so on, and just anecdotally, we do feel that we are hitting these areas quite well, but I don't have any firm data myself.
MR. HALPIN: The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada produces a document called "Trends" and we've referenced some of the information that they have, through their analysis, in our brief that talks about some of the other barriers to access in addition to financial means of a student. So other factors have been identified. In terms of what you are asking, have we done a specific study here in Nova Scotia, I think the answer to that is no, we haven't.
MR. EPSTEIN: I know others have questions so I will just make one more point, if I could, about this tuition issue. It has to do with the professional schools and, in essence, an exemption from the 3.9 per cent tuition increase limit that was imposed by the MOU. I know this applies only at Dalhousie and the three schools, I think, were the Law School, the Medical School and dentistry was maybe the third.
DR. DODDS: Yes.
MR. EPSTEIN: I want to say I have the same worry with respect to the professional schools as I have with respect to undergraduate and post-graduate programs and how the even more steeply rising tuition increases in those professional schools can be a barrier for people from very modest backgrounds.
I teach part-time at the Law School at Dalhousie. I'm very familiar with what are the ambitions for other law schools around the country, led by the University of Toronto's Law School where they are going to be hitting a tuition rate of about $25,000 a year, is their target. This is just an enormous barrier, actual and psychological, for people who are not used to taking on debt or who may already have debt as a result of their undergraduate backgrounds. I hope you will carry the message back to your colleagues that we are very worried about this part of it as well. Anyway, I'm sure others have other questions.
DR. DODDS: Yes, I will do that with pleasure.
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MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm going to chime in here then, as chairman, and use my prerogative just to ask a few questions. This is for all of our witnesses. The idea around infrastructure, it's an interesting point because a part of your infrastructure, Dr. Dodds, some of the older parts of your campus, are entirely different than say what would focus as a problem with CBU, that's an emerging university, if I can use that term. You know in your air of co-operation, if all you folks sat down and said, okay, you need to add infrastructure, if you will, maybe in CBU whether it is straight-out classrooms or in around residences and what you have to do, vis-à-vis renewing and rebuilding old stock. If you could answer on that plus, after another point, put it in context when we are talking about the possible rate increase that NSPI is looking at and obviously when you are looking at older buildings and the inefficiencies that go with them.
DR. DODDS: Many of our campuses, as you have just highlighted, were built or extended in the late 1960s and 1970s so we are getting to the end of not just their economic but their physical life, so they need to be refreshed. In some cases, it might be cheaper actually to rebuild and start from fresh, than trying to renovate. At the same time, we are aware, because of enrolment increases, the pressure on some of our campuses and we do have information which, if the committee was interested, of square footage per student that MPHEC, Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission, collects so you could actually seek selectively across the system how many square feet of space and where, in fact, the pressures might be.
So some of us do face challenges of buildings older than Cape Breton University. In fact, I just read the history of Cape Breton University the other day. I was presented with a copy so I was very pleased to read that. I think when we talk about infrastructure and deferred maintenance, we are also including in that, in some instances, the provision of new structures as well as refreshing existing structures. As I say, although we face some of the challenges, each institution is going to face, within that, different challenges as to the age range of our buildings. Some of it is air quality, some of it is code and some of it is just that the buildings are tired - roofs leaking, environmental issues that flow from water ingress and so on and so forth.
Each campus will have its own particular challenge so I think what we would like, if the issue of deferred maintenance is resolved in some way with some federal funding, that there should be some discretion as to how each institution handles that and some might want to see that in the form of increasing capacity; others, in fact, in the form of fixing up what is already there.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I asked that question primarily when you talked about federal dollars flowing back this way because, as you know, in the health care system, that was a real problem with dollars flowing back to the provinces and they were buying lawn tractors instead of diagnostic tools. That ended up being a real problem. On the line of directed dollars, I suppose if you ask the federal government - when it comes back here - to make sure
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that the dollars have a directed purpose, then what you would also see is when it gets filtered through the provincial hands, it would be directed again. So can you give us a wish list of, okay, we've got the money, where is it going; is it going to students, is it going to infrastructure?
DR. DODDS: Well, I guess, if I was the federal government I would probably want to have some direction right from the start as to where it might go. I mean, we do our budgeting, capital budgets vis-à-vis operating budgets, so we have that distinction between those two.
We would be seeking for capital funding and I think you're aware that the Council of Atlantic Premiers has been making that pitch in Ottawa and their Ministers of Education have been doing the same, specifically for capital. So if the feds were in a position to do that, well then that would be directed very much in capital. We would not be able to move it into operating. As I understand it, the funding from Bill C-48 is rather different. That is money which is there to, as I understand it, increase accessibility. One particular group that is specifically mentioned is First Nations students.
So, again, I think where the funds come from and then how in fact those funds would be directed and what accountability mechanism, because it might be that the federal government turns around and says, well, we're actually not going to flow this money through the province. If you start to look at AIF, for example, AIF is flowed through ACOA. It's not flowed directly. So for all we know the federal government might decide to say, look, here's money for capital, but it's going to be flowed through some other department. Then the accountability would come from them. So I'm not convinced that it would necessarily flow through the province.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Just one last question. On Bill C-48, when the representatives of the CFS were here last, one of their witnesses said that they believed the province should press for per student and not per capita funding. What would your response to that be?
DR. DODDS: On a per student basis, yes, we would support that. But, again, that comes back to our argument that it's the student that is taking courses at the institution and not their place of residence. So, again, for Nova Scotia it would be critical that that be recognized in the transfer.
MR. CHAIRMAN: That's all for me. Ms. Massey and then Mr. Glavine.
MS. JOAN MASSEY: I guess I will just jump right in here. The information that we have been given, we have compiled a fair amount of stuff, going over this topic. I want to talk about the recent poll that was done by the Canadian Federation of Students, the Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers and the Nova Scotia Government & General Employees Union.
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When they polled a fairly substantial amount of people and when people are telling them that 40 per cent of respondents are saying that their family members are denied access for financial reasons, that's a very distressing number. I think any of us, probably, sitting around the table know a young person who is struggling right now, either in post-secondary education or just isn't making it that far to begin with, or is sort of in the middle of it or somewhere in there, and they've hit a roadblock, either trying to pay their student debt back, being responsible or have made it partway through their education and now they've had to move out of the province to seek work somewhere else. I personally know people who have had real problems and issues with addressing those kinds of situations.
I guess it is a concern to you but I'm just wondering if you could really give us some more information - I mean, that poll was done but what kind of information do you have from your organization that either backs that up, or what are you planning to do in the future to either agree with what's being said there, and if this is what's going on and that's a poll of x amount of people, then what really is going on in this province? That means we have a huge issue with our young people being able to access an education in their own province. I'm just wondering if you could - I know you did touch on it a bit, but I think it's just such an important issue that we just can't leave it with what was already said.
[9:45 a.m.]
DR. DODDS: Well, it certainly is and that's why I'm very pleased to have it read into the record, our particular concerns and our statement that people should not be denied access because of financial reasons.
I can say that we all have anecdotal information ourselves, we can see the pressures on students. Students register and then we each have a date at which you have to clear your account for the semester. You see a spike in withdrawals at that point. We do some exit interviews where we can. Now, not everybody will talk to us as to why they're leaving but, where we can, we do some exit polling.
We've actually done - a few years ago we did a fairly longitudinal study of everybody who had dropped out prior to Christmas. In other words, we did it for four years. We had a questionnaire, anybody who had dropped out prior to taking the final exams in the first semester. Financial was the dominant factor. It wasn't the only factor but it was the dominant factor.
Increasingly, you know, each of our institutions is putting more money into bursaries and scholarships. The Millennium Scholarship Fund is quite significant. I was quite surprised myself when I saw the figures last week; $45 million has gone into that since inception to students in Nova Scotia.
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There's no doubt - and I don't want to shy away from the fact that there are some serious financial barriers. And it's not just tuition, it's the cost of books. The average book purchase is going to be probably over $100. Most of us, if not all of us, have second-hand book sales and things like that. That is part of it. Then if you're from a rural area, there's living away from home. There's the cost of residence, cost of food and so on. I can't shy away from the fact that there are several financial issues there.
We have a lot of employment on our campus, as do other universities as well. There's that aspect. What I have certainly seen over the years is - when I first came to Saint Mary's, I felt a lot of students got their academic schedule first and then fitted their work around that. Now I see more people getting their work schedule and trying to fit their academic schedule around that. I don't think we have any sort of - Peter is going to say we've got something. (Laughter)
MR. HALPIN: Well, actually, we did a regional study approximately 18 months ago. While I don't remember the exact figures I can tell you that, certainly, when participants were asked what their biggest concern was about the university system in Atlantic Canada, it was the cost of attending university. I'd be happy to send that data to you if you'd like to have that.
MS. MASSEY: Any information is good; the more, the better. Thank you. Am I out of time?
MR. CHAIRMAN: No, you have four minutes.
MS. MASSEY: Well, when you're speaking about those issues that students face with the cost of living and trying to hold down jobs - and I know most of them we heard from, the representatives from the student unions earlier, months ago, we had young people come in and tell us about their stories of going to the food banks and trying to hold down these various jobs, and working during the Summer. Then you're mentioning just the cost of living here in HRM, especially for rural students and you touched on that. I think there's almost a whole different set of issues they would face because they don't have their parents living here who they could live with, parents helping them out with goody bags and such, and coming home to do the laundry and these sorts of things.
I can't imagine, some of these students go through an awful lot of stress. This has to affect their learning experience, also. If they're not getting the proper nutrition, the proper sleep, they're stressed out about a job, they're working long hours, this has to affect their learning experience. I know you probably haven't done any studies on that issue, but I think it's an even bigger picture than we realize, what's happening to our students here. I just want to say we're trying to do everything we can from our end to help in any way we can, but it's really the government in the end that's going to have to step up to the blackboard and write
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down some numbers, and really put some money behind their talk. I'll leave it at that, Mr. Chairman.
DR. DODDS: Going to college or university from high school, for anybody, can be quite a transition. We are very much aware of that, and we all try, through open houses and so on, over the years, with many universities and so on, so that people get more familiar with the concept of the campus and the size of it and so on. One of the problems that we certainly feel some of our students face from a rural context is simply the size of the campus, the daunting nature of it all. If you compound that, then, with homesickness and financial problems and so on, there are some serious adjustment issues.
We do look and we do have our own data on students, as I say, as to why they withdraw. If you look at it, sometimes it's in the first week, sometimes it's even before they've taken a class, students pull out. So there are some serious issues there of retention. We try through buddy systems and orientation, there's a lot of things going on there. I agree with you that the transition from high school to post-secondary is a big one for any student, and if you then compound it with, am I going to get my student loan, I'm spending this money and that money, well, then it's no surprise to see when we hit September 30th, which is our date at Saint Mary's for students to clear their account, then you have a spike. Then, those students who try to labour on, we don't then ask them to leave. The earliest we'd ask them to leave would be Christmas, and we are then carrying the account receivable at that point.
We sit down with students and try to work out financial plans for them and budgets, and I'm sure my colleagues do that at their own institutions. There's no doubt it's an issue. As I say, for any student, the transition can be key, but you throw in the uncertainties on the financial side and it can be very daunting.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I must apologize to Mr. Glavine, I jumped over him the last time. Leo, I apologize.
MR. GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, I wasn't too worried because I was hoping to get the time of my missing colleagues today.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm not that sorry. (Laughter)
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you, Dr. Dodds, Dr. Hicks and Mr. Halpin, for being here today. I know my colleagues, Diana Whalen, the Education Critic, and Danny Graham, who fills in when there are Education matters before a committee, both wanted to be here today but are out of the province with plans made a long time prior to this date being set. Anyway, this is a topic, university education, that arises at our caucus table on a pretty regular basis. It is one that, in fact, as you have stated, needs to become a major part of the public policy
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planning for Nova Scotia in terms of the kinds of impacts that our university communities can have on the future life of Nova Scotia so it is very critical.
I'm just wondering, just a few kind of basic questions, first, to help build a little bit of a profile for me here. Is the trend going to continue this year at Nova Scotia universities of increasing enrolments or is it a little early yet to speak about that or is there a little decrease? What is the trending that you are anticipating, especially over the last five years?
DR. DODDS: If I could disaggregate the five years, the first two years of that saw some significant increases in enrolments and, of course, we did have the double cohort as well. I know what we saw the last two years has been, in some instances, a downturn in enrolments and in some other cases a levelling. So if I took the figures across the province, I would see that many of us, for this next year - and it's still too early to say - but if our application data is anything to go by, applications are typically down and it's true across the country. So we seem to see a flattening of enrolments and many of us, in fact, in our budgets, have predicted a level enrolment scenario for this next year.
MR. GLAVINE: Within that, are there any patterns emerging in terms of the undergraduates, the professional degrees, master's and so forth, professional schools and the master's programs. Are there any developing trends in those particular areas?
DR. DODDS: In terms of my own institution, we are seeing an increase in the graduate applications so that's not a surprise to us. We are seeing an increase in international student applications. Now, of course, in my own institution, that's something that we aggressively pursue and I think you are aware that there is the formation of Edunova here in Nova Scotia for the marketing of our institutions.
So we have seen, over the last little while, a continual increase in international applications and in international enrolments but I think it's fair to say that many of us, as I say, overall are predicting level. I think Dalhousie was predicting a small increase. Gillian Wood is here from Dalhousie.
MS. GILLIAN WOOD: In the professional schools?
DR. DODDS: Yes.
MS. WOOD: Yes, they are fine. The graduate schools, professional schools, they are . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: Gillian, if you want to just come forward toward the microphone please.
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MS. WOOD: Sorry. I think it's about the same at Dalhousie. We are looking at this stage of sort of a plateau-ing of the undergraduates but the professional schools, their numbers are always going up so that's not an issue there. Of course, the Medical School, it is a fixed enrolment number because of the funding that is provided by the government.
DR. HICKS: If I could add a comment from a different perspective, it might be of interest to the group because I represent a rural university, from my own university, NSAC. Over the last five-year period, we were finishing a long decline, about a 10-year long decline of regular 5 per cent or 10 per cent decreases in our population. That has reversed and it's going counter trend, it's going back up again and our prediction is that we will have another - we had a 5 per cent increase last year, we are anticipating another 5 per cent increase this coming year. It's something that is probably happening in agricultural schools all across the country. Finally, we've hit bottom and we are moving back up. Our graduate program is expanding. We have had a steady increase over the last 10 years of master's students. We are putting a Ph.D. program in place next year so we expect even more increases. So that's the good news part of this story.
Just again, another thing that I thought I might intervene with earlier, just to put it in context, some people might not be aware of it, tuition, at least at our university, is 17 per cent of the total cost of educating a student.
[10:00 a.m.]
MR. GLAVINE: Along those lines, I'm just wondering, is there, for example, Dr. Dodds, from your institution, or as a representative of CONSUP, is there now a dedicated international recruitment effort going on? We are seeing this general decline, the number of students in Nova Scotia and we know that, in other words, maintaining certain levels is really the critical mass need to be there for the life of the institution. Is there a dedicated effort internationally at the moment?
DR. DODDS: Well, each of our institutions has different plans as to what level of international enrolment they would like. In my own case, we are currently about 15 per cent and I wouldn't want to see that increase much more than say 20 per cent. So we all approach this differently but together, through Edunova - and Peter can perhaps talk about this - we are in fact moving forward. In the past, we've had funding from ACOA to do some joint recruitment as universities and we have some material that goes out, collectively, that portrays each of our institutions in a booklet, but the hope with Edunova is that we would be in a position to market the whole province.
MR. HALPIN: What I might add to that from an Association of Atlantic Universities' perspective is that we are in discussions with Citizenship and Immigration Canada. As everyone knows, immigration and retention of immigrants in Atlantic Canada has been probably discussed to death over the past year, but through that process, it has been
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recognized that international students attending universities in Atlantic Canada are potentially a great source of new immigrants and retained citizens in the region and certainly Citizenship and Immigration Canada recognizes that. We are in discussions with them now about what we might do in partnership with CIC and others to enhance the marketing of the region and its universities to target markets around the world.
MR. GLAVINE: Do I have time for one more?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Certainly, you have four minutes left.
MR. GLAVINE: Dr. Hicks pointed out that 17 per cent of the cost of running your institution comes from tuition.
DR. HICKS: Approximately.
MR. GLAVINE: Okay. I would say that's very different among our universities and I'm just wondering what the current proportion is in terms of tuition taking on the cost of operating the institution. I think that is really the critical driver here that has caused tuitions to actually go up and they are going to be maintained, I believe, in my view certainly, very high in Nova Scotia, I think 3.9 per cent. It's going to put us once again, potentially for the next three years, in the top three, for sure, of provinces and maybe at the very top. So what kind of a proportion of tuition fees are actually used in terms of the operation dollars?
DR. DODDS: I think you are right to use the word "operation" because we have to separate out our research infrastructure and the research funding. I mean if you took all the totality of that, you'd actually see that tuition would be quite a low figure. Peter, the figure for the province would be about 35 per cent on average?
MR. HALPIN: I'm really not certain.
DR. DODDS: We're not certain but my own institution tuition is about 65 per cent of operating but when you take the aggregate amount and you have some very high cost programs, graduate programs and professional schools and so on, the figure starts to change dramatically. If you could separate that out and look just at undergraduate education, obviously the proportion of tuition would increase quite significantly. But I would say something in the region of 30 per cent or 35 per cent on operating. I might be wrong on that. For some institutions, like my own, it would be higher; Acadia, I suspect, would be significantly higher. St. F.X. would be higher so we are probably in the 50 per cent, 60 per cent, 65 per cent range.
DR. HICKS: It's a complicated picture because I think it's a bit inaccurate to leave out the research costs as well because that is a very clear determinant of the quality of an institution. The more research-intensive a university is, typically the higher the quality of the
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faculty that can compete to get jobs there and the information that they impart to the students in the classroom is of higher value, because it's being taught by the people who are creating the knowledge themselves. There's no better educational experience than to have that. So I would argue in favour of taking in not just the operating costs but adding the research costs as well, because I think that's more accurate to reflect the reality of the quality of education that a given university will provide. If you do that analysis, the percentage lowers again, of the cost of tuition.
DR. DODDS: I think what's true to say is that tuition as a percentage has increased, whichever measure we take, whether we take the totality of operating, including research or if we strip out the research funding and just focus on the actual sort of teaching part. I think it's undeniable that over the years, the percentage increase that tuition pays the bills has increased. The MOU is hoping to address that. I would want to say that at 3.9 per cent, although, again, a lot of people would see that as high; in my own case that's the lowest increase since the late 1970s.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hines.
MR. HINES: In your opening address, you made the statement that $500 million was needed for capital costs, and you suggested that that does include projections of need for new infrastructure?
DR. DODDS: That's a figure for deferred maintenance, which I think in some instances would involve, in some campuses, demolishing a building and replacing it.
MR. HINES: What would be the rate of growth of that figure over the course of a year, 8 per cent, 10 per cent?
DR. DODDS: Peter - at one point when we did the figure, it was about 350 per cent, and that was about 10 years ago.
MR. HALPIN: Your question is timely, because we're just in a process now of doing a reassessment across the system, regionally, of what the deferred maintenance projections are at each institution. There's no doubt, it has gone up since the figures were last compiled.
DR. DODDS: MPHEC asked us to do a study, and I think at that point we were identified at 350 per cent, 400 per cent but that was many years ago. We think 500 per cent is close to the mark.
MR. HINES: Recently on another committee that I sit on our guests were the coalition of students and faculty, and one of the things that we talked quite an amount about, which was quite troubling to me, was the contribution of corporations and the private sector to education. The conversation was quite open-ended and it was rather adamant that it may
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be an ideology that there's no place for private-sector money in the education field, unless it's put in as a lump sum and the expenditure is being directed by the universities themselves. The problem they seemed to have was the fact that some fraternities, in particular maybe communications, economics and those areas, were being directed more funding from corporations than others.
Do you see a problem with direction of corporate spending? I come from a corporate world, and I believe I have a right to spend my money, and address somewhat where it's spent, but there seemed to be an ideology there that we're troubled by that. I have had considerable conversations since with corporate people, as well as private individuals who contribute to the education system. They were troubled some would suggest that you want us to spend our hard-earned money and they have no direction as to where it was going to go. How is it handled when it does come to you?
DR. DODDS: Well, we're in the middle of a capital campaign, so I can tell you that we're obviously talking to lots of different people. Clearly, if someone's going to give some money, they have the right to direct it, within bounds, and we have the right not to accept it if we can't accept the direction.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that somebody says, well, I'm going to give you some money for a chair, and the chair is in this particular area, if that fits our academic plan, well then, we'd say thank you very much. However, in terms of the appointment process that would lead to the appointment of that person to fill that chair, well then that would be something that would be internal to the university and would be part of our processes. But if somebody says, well, I want to give money for a chair and I want it in the x y z area, and say that fits our plan, and if they then accept that they will not control who gets that chair, so you have a separation of powers, as it were, well then, the issues just don't arise. So you have the donor getting the recognition, getting the direction of the chair, and likewise for buildings, if they say, look, I'll give you some money towards a building, I'd like my name on that building, again, if that's approved in our internal structures, fine. Now they would not then have any right as to who the architects are on your processes for tendering and that sort of thing.
Again, when we use the word "direction", I think this shouldn't be an issue. It's the same with scholarships, someone says I want to give some money for scholarships. We'll say, well, what sort of issues would you like to address, is it bursaries; if so, is it Arts, Science, Business, Medicine, what is it? What are your particular areas of interest? Again, if they want it in a certain area, as long as it's not discriminatory in the sense, we could work on that. Again, it would be our internal processes that would decide who would get those scholarships and bursaries, not the donor.
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MR. HINES: One of the other issues that was brought up at that point in time that concerned me as well as that the faculty representative on that coalition committee suggested, without giving us details, that they were not privy to the information that maybe they needed, that there was too much confining of information that was available or that they were getting in terms of how the directors of the universities were spending the funding.
DR. DODDS: In our collective agreements we supply budget information, certainly in my own case and I'm sure it's true of other institutions. Faculty members, because they share in the governance of the university, are on those committees, they're on our boards, so all that information is available. I don't know why they would feel that some information is kept back. If we're going out seeking funding from the private sector, which we do, we're very pleased then to announce that, assuming that the person wants some recognition. If it's anonymous, well, it's anonymous. Then that's reported. I really don't feel there's a lack of information.
MR. HINES: I was troubled by the statement because the Auditor General's Reports and so on indicate that they're quite satisfied that you're following GAAP and that the reporting is better and better all the time. I've seen your annual reports and so on, and as I said the conversation was very open-ended and we didn't get detail as to what he was insisting might be being hidden, in terms of how your budgets were being spent. It did trouble me, and that's why I asked the question. I was certainly not making an accusation . . .
DR. DODDS: No, no.
MR. HINES: . . . shortage of information or anything like that.
DR. DODDS: And we are subject to FOIPOP as well. On that basis, we are all pushing for transparency. The way the universities operate, you have various stakeholders, you have your students, your faculty, alum, and sometimes staff as part of your board. They have access to all information and can request as much detail as they possibly want.
MR. HINES: Just one more question, in regard to the approximately $25 million every year that we could access from the federal government, the federal funding formula was changed. Are you getting the attention to that matter that you feel you should get from the federal government, and if you're not, is it because the other provinces are not experiencing that degree of difficulty that the Province of Nova Scotia does?
DR. DODDS: We are in constant lobbying with the federal government, both as CONSUP but particularly as AAU. In fact just yesterday we had a minister of state in for a briefing, and we raised many of the issues that we've raised with you this morning, Bill C-48, we raised the whole issue of infrastructure, the whole issue of dedicated transfer. We do that with our MPs, we do that with the regional representative, we do that with the various caucuses out there, the Atlantic Caucus, the Atlantic Liberal Caucus and so on.
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We felt the meeting we had yesterday, by the way, was a very productive meeting. We do feel that, at all levels now, at both the federal level and the provincial level there, is a very real interest in moving forward, but we think that the federal level, although they provided a lot of funding in terms of CFI, in terms of bursaries, in terms of Canada research chairs, and indirect costs to research and so on, they realize there are bits of the jigsaw missing.
[10:15 a.m.]
We are finding that they feel one of the pieces is the deferred maintenance issue, the bricks and mortar issue that we have raised. Another is the accessibility issue. So we feel that if we can have a partnership with you, at the provincial level and all Parties, and get a real public debate on this and then at the federal level, we can really make headway. If we can do it then with our alumni base and the private sector, the NGOs and so on, we can really get education to be, with health - and we realize the importance of health and so on - but we sometimes feel that education gets trumped by health. We have to get education up there and we do need that public debate. We are feeling that we are getting headway with the federal government.
MR. HINES: So are you going to be able to maintain this particular issue aside from the other issues you're dealing with? It does seem to be a major Nova Scotia issue in terms of the funding formula. Are you going to be able to keep that separate and still get the support of the other Premiers as you go forward in your federal-provincial agreement?
DR. DODDS: It's obviously going to be a challenge. As we all know, education is a provincial responsibility. If you give for one area, well then, what is someone else going to get somewhere else? We could see that with the energy accord for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Well then, Ontario pops up and says, well, you know, what about us? This is an issue.
We are certainly very active in our advocacy role and we know our student leaders are doing the same. We think there is finally some resonance out there. Of course, there is going to be a federal election at some point soon, so I think that bit by bit, together, if the provinces, the provincial Premiers, the Ministers of Education, provincially, can do their push, at the same time, we can do our push with our MPs and with our government officials.
We feel we can get there. In other words, that we are getting some resonance back instead of just a stone wall. So, for example, on the infrastructure issue, a few years ago we were hitting a stone wall. This time we think - listening to what is coming back to us - that there may be some capacity to do that.
MR. HINES: Thank you for your candid answers.
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MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, thank you, Mr. Hines. We will be going around now for another go-round. I will ask the participants to keep their questions to a maximum of five- minute allotments. I have Mr. Epstein, Mr. Glavine and myself so far on the list, so, Mr. Epstein.
MR. EPSTEIN: I was wondering if we could get a little more detail on some of the global money aspects of the university system right now. We've heard about deferred maintenance. I have to say I was also surprised to hear the $500 million figure. I had $350 million, or some other smaller number in mind from, I guess, some earlier exchanges or data I had seen in the past. Is there anything built into the funding formula right now that takes account of that? Is that a factor or is this something that you are simply having to assign money to as you can?
DR. DODDS: Well, certainly, in the provincial transfer of funds to the universities, there is a small element of alterations and renovations, I think what we call A & R money, which we do get and we are very pleased to get that. However, in terms of that amount of funding, how many hundreds of years would it take to replace the capital? It's somewhere in the hundreds of years it would take to replace our capital stock. So we are falling behind. But, no, there is some money that does come through A & R. In terms of capital, itself, new capital, at the moment it's zero.
MR. EPSTEIN: In terms of - well, that was actually my next point. Well, sorry, we've left deferred maintenance now and moved to new capital?
DR. DODDS: No.
MR. EPSTEIN: Okay, sorry.
DR. DODDS: The money for any further capital money, apart from the A & R funding which has been fixed for many years, there is no further allocation to us.
MR. EPSTEIN: Okay. I now want to talk about capital funds from the provincial government. What is the process and the formula now in terms of new buildings? If you're building a new building, what is the requirement in terms of contribution from either private sector or from alumni, and so on, compared with government?
DR. DODDS: Well, assuming it's a building that's not a pure research structure - so, in other words, it's not going to attract, say, funding from CFI or something of that source - we're basically on our own. There's no capital funding available from the province in their funding base. At one point there used to be, I think, $5 million or something like that, which the province committed to for new capital construction. That was eliminated some years ago.
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I'm not aware of any - now, Newfoundland, recently, if my information is correct, have got a matching one for one. If you raise some money from the private sector or alums, externally, we'll match that. I think that was in the announcement recently from Newfoundland. But for new buildings, no, you're on your own and you've got to seek from donors, potential donors, alumni, your own family, as it were, in terms of your university family, your own community, your faculty, your staff, students, and anyone else you can seek to support the Friends of the University.
MR. EPSTEIN: That's interesting, I have to say. I must have missed this. When did the province eliminate this?
DR. DODDS: Oh, six or seven years ago?
MR. HALPIN: It predates 2000.
DR. DODDS: Yes. I think it was eliminated around about 2000. There were some commitments which had to be honoured and then when that money had been committed and spent - and as part of a previous thing there were some commitments. For example, we did get some provincial money before for our Sobey building and Dalhousie received, but that was part of the rationalization process in the late 1990s. We're not aware of any capital allocation right now.
MR. EPSTEIN: Isn't that interesting. So right now you might qualify for some federal grants, depending on the kind of building, but there's nothing provincially?
DR. DODDS: Nothing provincially, no.
MR. EPSTEIN: Okay.
MR. HALPIN: As pointed out in the brief, the AAU is working with the Council of Atlantic Ministers of Education and Training in making this pitch to the federal government about support for campus infrastructure renewal of universities and colleges across the region. Now, there is a clause in our MOU with the Nova Scotia government that, through the course of this year, if there is no indication that the yardsticks are being moved in that process, that the Nova Scotia Government has agreed to sit down again with the Council of Nova Scotia University Presidents to talk about capital funding.
MR. EPSTEIN: Okay. Now, on to operating.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Very quickly, Mr. Epstein.
MR. EPSTEIN: Okay. Well, if you had your druthers, what would the global level be in the province?
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DR. DODDS: For operating?
MR. EPSTEIN: Yes.
DR. DODDS: Oh, gee, well, I guess in an ideal world there would be zero tuition so I guess whatever the difference is, you know, in terms of tuition, just take your total operating budgets and say, well, that would be 100 per cent, but I mean, that's not going to happen. I couldn't tell you. I would have to get you that figure.
MR. EPSTEIN: Okay.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Glavine.
MR. GLAVINE: Yes, Dr. Dodds, I was wondering how you would describe the level of student participation prior to the signing of the MOU? This was a very controversial area, as we all know, both as legislators, university presidents, Department of Education and so forth. How would you describe the level of participation prior to the signing of the agreement?
DR. DODDS: It was not ideal, it wasn't optimal. There had been some commitments made that there would be some prior consultation. In fact, I know that there were some earlier briefings. What actually happened, as I think you are aware, as a matter of fact, was the student leaders were briefed just before the signing, immediately before, a few minutes before the signing ceremony. Clearly, that was not optimal from anyone's standpoint, from our standpoint. I think the government confirmed that it was not, from their standpoint and certainly from the students' standpoint.
Having said that, there were some reasons that I think led to that, one of which was a major leak of information that appeared in one of the regional newspapers. So that seemed to accelerate the process to then move forward to have that document, the MOU, signed. I don't know if that was a full explanation.
MR. GLAVINE: I appreciate your comment there. Perhaps more important now is not to look back so much but to go forward and say, what is CONSUP's position in terms of having students involved in the next round of negotiations?
DR. DODDS: I think CONSUP's position would be that clearly our student leaders and our student body in total, there needs to be consultation with our student groups. One of the questions, of course, is what is the basis of that representation? Is it in fact through one of the overall national agencies or student groups, and so on? That's an issue that we could discuss.
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If I take, for example, the meeting I had last week on immigration and the implementation of the ability for students to work off-campus, they're built in as an advisory group that would have student representation. The question is, how would that representation - it would certainly be some students picked in some way, but would they be picked by the student groups themselves as part of an association or would it come from the individual institutions or what? I think we all learned a lesson from the MOU process, that we needed to be more transparent and have more consultation.
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you for those comments. In terms of Bill C-48, student leaders, student bodies have talked about where they would like to see the money go. What would be your position in relation to where the money should go, and, in fact, will university presidents or CONSUP have a position at the table in that process of having those monies allocated?
DR. DODDS: We have not, as a group of presidents, met to discuss that specifically. If you wanted my own personal view on that, we want to be, as presidents, very actively involved in that process. In fact, we'd like to lead that process in partnership, however, with the feds, with the provincial government, and with our other stakeholders in the system, which includes our students.
MR. GLAVINE: One last question, I know accessibility and so on is a big issue, and there's a lot about the income factor of families. I've stated here before that the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission, their study, of course, that was revealed last September indicated that the socio-economic factor was now creating an adverse trending of students from those families. That's a factor, certainly, but when you talk about student enrolment perhaps starting to drop off a little bit, just a quick comment on the role of the university in terms of perhaps moving a little from the classical degrees of Arts and Science to one that is more market-driven. Do you sense a need for that, Dr. Dodds? I'd appreciate your comment on that.
DR. DODDS: Well, obviously our curriculum has to reflect some societal values and societal needs. All our curricula are reviewed, externally and internally, and our senates play an active role in that, which includes, of course, our student representatives. What you can see in certain jurisdictions, which includes Ontario, is, in fact, a move to some of the more applied degrees, and I suspect that's what you might be referring to, which are clearly linked to particular areas. So, you see some in the oil and gas sector, you see some in the aerospace sector. We certainly welcome those. Of course in many of our professional programs, again you see a totality of interface with communities. So those are already in place.
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[10:30 a.m.]
Having said that, I think you'll see a change in our curriculum over the years, as to what's included and what's not included. We're seeing more of an internationalization of our curriculum. So if you looked at an English Literature curriculum now, the chances are it's dramatically different than what it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. I think you'd probably see more - I may be wrong, but - diversity, perhaps, in the cultural aspects of that. So you'll probably see more Asian literature, you'll probably see more Canadian literature and so on.
I think our curricula are continuously evolving, and I think there is a place for more applied - and some of our co-op programs do this. We encourage our students to study abroad where they can, so there's that flavour as well, to give that very real experience. What Philip said about the research that you get at universities, what distinguishes universities from a college system, would in fact be more of the research being applied into the classroom and, in fact, where our students actively get involved in that research. So it's not unusual in many of our universities to see our undergraduate students, not just graduate students, involved in applied research.
I think there's a place for applied degrees, and we're starting to see them in other jurisdictions. Who knows? We may get some of these appearing in Nova Scotia as the need arises.
MR. CHAIRMAN: In my short time left, I'd like to talk about a few things around student aid. First, I like to tell everybody, the time I've spent around government, there's probably no more frustrating agency to deal with than student aid, whether it's the Nova Scotia or the federal side of it. Just trying to understand how they arrive at their numbers is quite frustrating. From your perspective, as you're trying to partner with them, you're the kind of handle to the shovel in a lot of ways, you've got these students coming in the door, you obviously have to get some monies from them, and you hope that they're funded appropriately.
How much of an ongoing day-to-day relationship do you have with student aid, provincially and federally? Do they come back to you and say, look, is this program working? Should we be more aggressive here? When should we be sending out the cheques? Is there a way we can get data from students that would be more friendly, and we could move this along quicker?
DR. DODDS: I can't answer that directly. We all have our financial aid offices on our campuses that interface with students and interface with the funding agencies for student aid. I know there have been occasions where delays have caused students to withdraw, delays in processing. I think things have improved over the last few years, that's the impression I get. I can't give you a direct answer to your question.
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MR. CHAIRMAN: Another point around student aid and student loans, a few years back the government was looking at a program they called de-designation. Now they've softened it up and made it a more positive word and called it designation, but it does the same thing, which would say that when an institution has so many students in default, that institution would not be designated to have the students avail themselves of student aid. I guess the question I want to ask is, what is CONSUP's position on that? To your knowledge, is government still pursuing the problem with designation? I speak on it from living in an area with high unemployment, and sometimes it's some while before a graduate gets on their feet, and even with interest deferred and so on, there's still major problems in paying that loan back.
DR. DODDS: That was a hot potato a few years ago. As we understood when we talked with government officials on this, and that's going back quite a few years, we got the impression that it was really some of the private colleges where the delinquency rates were extremely high. It's not an issue that we've discussed at CONSUP in the last two years, that I'm aware of. We may have been asked for that information, it may have been asked of our financial aid people and so on, but it's not an issue that CONSUP at this point has been actively engaged in. I think the issue - I hope the issue - has gone away.
The issue was particularly acute, and at the time Cape Breton University made the very point you've just made. And those delinquency rates, if my memory serves me right, were based on six months, and how long does it take to get a job? People are graduating sometimes in the Fall, people are graduating sometimes in May. So if you actually took away that six months and then started to look at one year, you might get a rather different picture. We did a lot of lobbying at the time with the provincial officials, and I have to tell you, at this point, unless there's something I'm missing, it's not an issue that they've come back to us recently on.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Massey.
MS. MASSEY: I guess one of the reasons we're here today is to have a chance to go over some of the things that weren't done in the poll. There are more details in there than what we've mentioned here today, and there's a couple that I just wanted to point out in the time I have left.
We did mention the 14 per cent of families surveyed reporting that someone they knew or themselves had to drop out because of tuition costs and other costs. What I wanted to point out while I had the time was that there's actually a high proportion of women affected according to this poll. As the poll says, it's not surprising but, the drop-out rate was higher and more frequent in families earning under $30,000. Also, when they polled people who could not attend because of affordability of tuition, of the costs, it was 29 per cent of those families. Again, women seemed to be affected at a higher rate than men, and also the
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families earning under $30,000 were at 41 per cent as compared to 20 per cent for those earning over $70,000.
I just wanted to take the time and get that on the record here today, because I think it was a good job done by all those involved in getting those figures out, because when we see that on paper, it just drives it home all that more forcefully. I just wanted to end with one question, if Nova Scotia Power gets their rate increase and you're hit with that $150,000 increase per year, how are you going to pay for that? Where is that money going to come from?
DR. DODDS: We were talking about that before we actually met you, the three of us did meet ahead of this meeting. There is something in the MOU that talks about unforeseen cost increases. So, we'd have to see how we could accommodate that, because we're already on record, the system as a whole, having to show a productivity increase of 1 per cent, which effectively means that there is a funding gap between our revenues and our expenses. All I can say is we're just going to have to sit down and see how much we can absorb, if we can absorb anything at all, and if not, go back to the government and say, this is an unforeseen cost increase, can we talk again.
MS. MASSEY: I'm just wondering if you can give us your reaction to Community Services' position on people not being able to access university or post-secondary education while they're on Community Services programs. What's your reaction to that, or your stand on that?
DR. DODDS: I'm going to speak personally but I'm sure my colleagues would share that they should be able to have access.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Dooks.
MR. DOOKS: Just one quick one, gentlemen. When you're doing your stats, how do you mark down those who are youth coming out of school going into the universities, and those who, maybe we can say, are adults going back? And in saying that, those who have started university, and for some reason have dropped out, do you record or track if they, in some part of their adult life, enter the system again? I know the population would be made up of youth, but what is the growing population of adults going back? I speak to people, not daily but quite often, telling me that they're going back to finish their credits, pick up their credits, going back, as a matter of fact entering the college or university programs in their 40s. That seems to be very exciting. How do you track that?
DR. DODDS: Well, you can track it in several ways. One, we do have the concept of mature students, and in terms of entering, most of us would relax the entry standards in terms of a mature entrant. So that's the first thing. In terms of a student coming back, if they've been in the system and if they have - no matter who they've been with - got some
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credits, those credits would be transferred either to the institution they've chosen or if it's the same institution, they would be re-credited.
Now there are some aging issues, we do have restrictions on how many years, if you had a computer course 20 years ago, how valid is it now? So those are issues that would have to be addressed. We track it through the student number, because one of the things we ask when a student reapplies is, have you ever been registered at a post-secondary institution, in which case, tell us and tell us who. Then we would ask for a transcript from that, if it's another institution, and if it's our own institution, we'd go back and we'd access that transcript.
So we can track those, and we are asked for data from MPHEC for time to completion as well. In other words, what is the time for completion? A student comes in at 18 as a brand-new student, how many years on average does it take for them to graduate? We have to collect that information as well.
MR. DOOKS: A certain percentage of adult students entering the programs actually graduate with their BA or whatever. I understand that some adult students go back simply to pick up a credit to exercise their mind, get back into the work stream, and many people have shared that with me.
DR. DODDS: We class those as non-degree. So we collect that data as well.
MR. DOOKS: Oh, you do, good. But someone who is actually sitting down with a counsellor, determining that they're going to go through with their BA or Science program, the percentage of completion is high?
DR. DODDS: Yes. I would say that that completion - if someone is coming back to the university, or coming for the first time because they missed out, they're coming with a huge motivation.
MR. DOOKS: The level of maturity is there as well.
DR. DODDS: Sometimes it's not unusual for them to graduate with their children. They're coming back because their child is attending university.
MR. DOOKS: Getting back, speaking of the youth, I also have heard young people are going to university because they don't really know what they want, so they're entering the universities. What kind of initiatives are we looking at in the high school system to be able to work with the students and say, okay, obviously you need something else, is the university the right thing for you, or technical, or community college? I think we lack some type of direction, maybe in Grades 10, 11 and 12, that we should be working with the students giving them more directive to where they're going.
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I think the universities and also the other institutions should be a part of that, the foundation. I think we would achieve better results if they knew, indeed, not only that this is available but to explain and try to identify what the nature of that person would be, because we have so many people in society today working in jobs that they're not necessarily happy in, just by chance. So there should be an evaluation of that student in the high school system to make sure that they weld well with their profession and I think you would get better results and productivity.
[10:45 a.m.]
DR. DODDS: Well, as I said before in an answer to another question, it's that transition from high school to university and college. I think now community college has transformed itself. People can now see that there are very real alternatives and, frankly, university is not for everyone. Sometimes it's parental expectations and sometimes it's their own expectations and we do see a situation where some people come and they realize that it's not for them either at this time, because of maturity or whatever it is, they don't know what they want to do or, in fact, simply because they realize that there is something else they should be doing.
We all have active liaison and programs with our guidance counsellors so our guidance counsellors in the schools are aware of new programs, they are aware of initiatives and so on, so we do all of that. We go in and recruit in the high schools. We have open houses. We encourage high school students in competitions. We have programming competitions and we have competitions for this and that, writing competitions. So we want our students, as I said before, to have as much information as they possibly can and certainly with the Internet, it's possible to have that now, but having said that, I still think there could be a better transition.
There are some transition programs. We have, for example, what we call the Extreme First Year Information Program for study skills so that when students come there, they have to pay extra for it, but when they first come, if they wish, they can enrol in a six-week program that focuses heavily on study skills in math and writing. We have a writing centre now. Again, many of us have that kind of assistance but I think there could be a better liaison between our high school system and our universities but, of course, we have to be invited in and it is a two-way street.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Glavine for two short questions and then we will give you some time to wrap.
MR. GLAVINE: Certainly I think a lot of today's discussion and theme does flow around access to the university and I still see that as a critical piece where government and the universities both have a role to play, probably government along the lines of grants for students who are just not able to afford. I know that pain and reality first-hand as a senior
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high school vice-principal. I would say my most difficult moments were not around suspending a Grade 12 student, you get over that, but hearing a student say my family earns less than $20,000. They won't even let me look at going to university. That's a very painful thing for me who, as well, came from a family of lower means, and myself and most of my siblings did get a university education which is so enhancing, so beneficial to one's life and career.
Has CONSUP or the university presidents looked at a program, for example, again a transitional element like first-year university at our community colleges which have a nice geographic distribution around the province. I know for rural students, that may be less costly and that real introduction to going to university. Have there been any talks or anything along those kinds of ideas?
DR. DODDS: Institutionally, yes. I'm not aware that CONSUP itself has done that but there have been some links that we, for example, before the community college was created, there were individual colleges so we had a link with Akerley and we took their credits and so on, so you are starting to see that developing and I think that could develop more into the future. I hope it will, personally. On the issue of accessibility, in the brief, we make the point that assistance should be targeted. CONSUP, itself, doesn't buy into the issue of tuition freezes and so on because that benefits all the rich and the poor. So our brief would be that assistance should be targeted, just precisely to the type of person coming from that family you've mentioned, Leo. Why give a write-off to everybody? Those who can afford, should in fact pay. So with limited dollars available, our feeling at CONSUP is that they should be targeted.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Epstein.
MR. EPSTEIN: I have a question about immigration. One of the issues that sometimes arises with new immigrants is the transfer of their qualifications when they get here. People might come from another country with an education degree or a nursing degree or engineering and so on, and the problem then becomes whether that qualification is recognized in Canada for purposes of practising their profession here. This seems to be something of a mess. I'm wondering if the universities are involved at all in this process of evaluating qualifications of people who come from other parts of the world, or whether this is something that you might have a potential to become involved with or whether it's just left entirely to the professional certifying body that determines whether the degree or professional qualification from elsewhere is satisfactory.
DR. DODDS: We're certainly aware of that issue, and we know that in the case of Ontario, for example, the Minister of Education - I can't remember her name - herself, an immigrant, I think, has taken it upon herself and her ministry to lead the charge with the professions, many of the professional groups, because that's, for the most part, what we're talking about. In terms of credits, if someone is bringing a credit in from another university,
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we can do that ourselves, either by using an accrediting body or even if it's in a foreign language, we can simply get it translated.
The issue really does come down to, I think, entry into the professions. I'm going to ask Gillian to perhaps address that. I know that I've been at various forums around the table where we've had some of the professional bodies, and it has been a real challenge for them in certain areas. Of course I have to say that even in Canada, provincially, we don't have complete transferability of credentials. It is an issue that we're very aware of. We've met at different times with federal Cabinet Ministers who are very concerned about this, because they say, look, there's a shortage in this area of particular - I won't name any - professions, yet at the same time our constituents are telling us we have that qualification from another country. There's a supply and demand mismatch. Professions, of course, are saying, well, we have our standards and our curriculum and so on and so forth.
What I would say is I think there is a very real move now to try to redress that. Gillian, I saw something a few months ago that the medical profession was starting to move in that area. I don't know if you'd like to address that. Dalhousie, of course, has most of the professional programs.
MS. WOOD: I'm not sure I can really answer the question entirely, but for the most part the professional standards are set by the associations. We do have an international health office, medical office, at the Faculty of Medicine, and they do upgrading and training and reviewing of credentials for physicians from other countries and that kind of thing. So there are programs in place, probably not as comprehensive and I don't think it's right across the board for all the professions, but perhaps I could look into that and get back to you.
DR. DODDS: Let's just say, we don't control the accrediting bodies or the licensing bodies, but I can assure you on the issue of the transfer of university credits, that's something that we do pretty automatically.
MR. EPSTEIN: Sure, which is why I asked, because there's almost a small suggestion of duplication if on the one hand you can evaluate the university degree and the professional bodies are coming to struggle with the rest of it. Sorry, I'm going to stop here.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Before I thank you, if you have about a minute of closing statements, we'd certainly love to hear it.
DR. DODDS: I'd just like to thank you for this ongoing debate. It's very refreshing that you would take the time and interest in this area and I think it augurs well for the future. I know we've touched on the MOU process and so on. We really felt that this was a first step. I can tell you that I realize that there is the rural/urban issue but for those universities that are in Halifax, we are going through an MOU process with the city. So we can start to see this increasing dialogue. Our challenge - and I think your challenge, so I say our challenge
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collectively - is to get this debate around the kitchen table in our communities in Nova Scotia, in the region and across Canada because if we can do that, well then you are going to be bombarded with those questions when you knock on the doors, canvassing, which I hope will be good, and at the same time federally. We are very optimistic now that we are starting to get the message out, the importance of reinvesting in education. Thank you very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: On behalf of the committee, we thank you. I thank the committee members for their indulgence today, for enduring the chairman. Our next meeting is August 30th and a motion to adjourn is in order.
MR. DOOKS: So moved.
MR. CHAIRMAN: We stand adjourned.
[The committee adjourned at 10:56 a.m.]
