The Canada Education Council?

DR. WATSON SCOTT SWAIL President & CEO, Educational Policy Institute

Education policy in Canada is a sticky wicket. Controlled by the provincial governments, the only authority the federal government has is through block grants and a few other legislative levers, almost all of which involve transfers of funds from the feds to the provinces. Money is the only national lever that really exists.

Provincial autonomy cuts both ways. Every region in any country wants local control. There exists a belief that decisions made locally can better suit the particular needs of that locality than something emanating through federal governance. And this certainly does and can hold true.

But as time goes on, the global economy grows, and the world shrinks, this argument carries less water. A main problem with provincial or localized control is that there is little regard for national development and global competiveness. True, Canadian students test well against the world, often ranking in the top tier of countries on tests. But this is happening by chance rather than by a careful act of consideration. And it is also true that each province is competiting globally. But together we prosper; divided we fail.

This isn't to suggest Canada should ply control away from the provinces and run everything from the federal level. While it works well in France, it wouldn't work in Canada because of the history of provincialism. Regardless, it would never fly politically or culturally. Even if we could get to a point where a majority of the provinces would agree to such a proposition, I know two provinces that would never agree to such as scheme. All I'll say is that one is in the east and one is in the west. If that doesn't help, one province won the Grey Cup this year and the other hosted it (and they can both count to 12). Meech Lake would seem like a piece of cake.

As we approach 2010--10 years after Y2K--we are in need of a more articulated national perspective on education, both at the K-12 and post-secondary levels. I have argued for the same in the United States, where they are dogged by a similar issue at the state level. There is no rationale reason for curriculum to be different from province to province, or state to state, at any level of education. Reading is reading, mathematics is mathematics, and so on. Pedagogies do not need to differentiate geo-political regions. In fact, a nation is better off ensuring that all citizens are being taught the same core material. At the post-secondary levels, no one can convince me that Intro Psych needs to be different at UBC compared to Dal. I have a hard time thinking many of these subjects need to differentiate anywhere around the globe. Political science? Perhaps. But these are small areas within a larger constructs of society, academic studies, or business and industry.

So, no call for the federal government to create a new division to structure education nationwide. But we have come to a time when a new organisation needs to emerge. It's time for a new cross-boundary structure, where each province, voluntarily, establishes a team of at least four representatives from the K-12 and post-secondary levels. The role of these teams is to, in a collective fashion, begin to bring together long-standing discussions about education standards, practices, data collection systems, and policies that all provinces could, at least in time, subscribe to. The entity would not be a funding entity, althought the federal government, for their role, would provide funding to support the provincial entities and all travel and other necessary logistics.

To give an example if have suggested for the US, I'd like to see the Canadian federal government provide $100 million for a student data infrastructure from pre-K to through postsecondary education. But that's where the federal government's intervention would end. Give the provinces five years to plan, implement, and populate the database so we could have great data for prudent public policy making at the provincial and federal levels. Make it secure. The provinces make the decisions. But the federal government would be within their power to say, just as they do in block grants, "Here is the money. More than enough for your needs. You have five years or the money is gone. You design it. You build it." It would not be an unfunded mandate, but rather, a very nicely funded mandate. Provinces could opt out of the deal, but they could, collectively, develop something they so dearly need at absolutely zero cost to them.

Is this radical? Historically, yes. But in consideration of our times, maybe its about time we re-think our provincial silos and start a new era of federalism and partnerships. We can build on what we've done through CMEC and other national organizations, and work diligently for better education and better education policy throughout Canada.

That is my wish for the new year. On behalf of the Educational Policy Institute, have a very Happy Holiday season.

WSS>

DR. WATSON SCOTT SWAIL is the founding president and CEO of the Educational Policy Institute, with offices in Canada, the US, and Australia. Dr. Swail is well known for his research on educational opportunity and post-secondary access and success. Before establishing EPI, he served as Vice President for The Council for Opportuntiy in Education in Washington, DC, founding director of the Pell Institute for the Study of Educational Opportunity, Senior Research Scientist at SRI International, and Associate Director of Policy Analysis at The College Board in Washington, DC. He is a former classroom teacher and received his bachelor's degree from the University of Manitoba, master's degree from Old Dominion University, and doctorate in education policy from The George Washington University.