Where Canada Gets it Right
WATSON SCOTT SWAIL, President & CEO, Educational Policy Institute
As Canadians, we’re relatively comfortable being about “average” in the world. I don’t mean that in a negative way. We kind of like to blend in, do what we do, and let the world judge accordingly. We aren’t like our southern neighbours who claim to be “number one” in almost everything. Especially when we can quickly point to PISA and other international studies which suggest otherwise.
This sense of “Canadian” is what the world likes about us. We’re trustworthy, decent and polite, and we stand by our word. We are the "kinder, gentler nation." Even if we think we’re number one, we typically don’t put it on every billboard in the country (with the exception of the upcoming Olympics, but that’s an earned privilege of being the host country!).
In the US this week, many lawmakers and newspapers pointed to Canada’s actions on deficit reduction in the 1990s and 2000s as a model for the US to follow in the current fiscal crisis. One bungled Prime Ministerial career aside, Paul Martin will go down as a fiscal genius in the annals of economics. The Canadian economy has been relatively (strong emphais on "relatively) isolated from the economic devastation when compared to the US, due in large part to tough political decisions made fifteen years ago.
Beyond the economy, let’s hope the US and other countries take a similar look at what Canada has done in post-secondary education. The continual refrain of “We have the best universities in the world” gets tiresome in the US, even if it is (sigh) true. The record speaks for itself: one third of the top 100 institutions on the Shanghai Rankings are from the US, half of which are public universities. That’s something to hang one's hat on. If measured in economic stimulus and research, the US is simply in a league all by itself, only to be envied by every G20 country.
But is the US post-secondary "system" the best in the world? This is an arguable point based on the reality that the US system, as focused on in rankings, focuses primarily on university-level education as their definition of higher education. True, there exist over 1,500 community colleges across the US, and they are becoming an increasingly important piece of the system. But in discussion of post-secondary education, the US misses out on one important piece -- trades and vocational education.
I rarely enter a Canadian conversation about post-secondary education where trades and vocational education are not a part of the conversation. During the recent OCUFA conference in Toronto, this issue came up consistantly--you simply can't talk about PSE without considering the gammut of options from university-level education down to three-month trade programs. They all represent an important piece of education and training after consulsory schooling is complete. Manitoba stands as a great example where large emphasis is placed on trade education, and high school guidance counselors ensure that these career paths are provided as viable options to all students. In 2004, the Doer Government funded a $4.5 million initiative that focused completely on revitalizing technical/vocational education in the province. At about the same time, when EPI was developing a PSE curriculum for the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation to be used by several provinces, Manitoba always drew us back to the need to alter language and scope to ensure that other, non-university forms of education were highlighted in the materials. Why? Because the economy is driven as much by trades as it is by economists.
This doesn’t happen in the US. In fact, one could successfully argue that vocational-level (read: blue collar) education is a distant tier from university or even college education. Perhaps this is because of the hyperfocus on ROI from an education which shows a huge gap in the US in earnings by degree level. However, this gap is not as large in Canada, illustrating to all that people can and do make decent livings off a two-year or less degree.
As I wrote a few weeks ago in EPI's US Commentary, there exists a major effort in the US to increase the number of bachelor’s degrees to ensure the nation's global competitiveness. In this era of higher education proliferation, it is easy to jump on the bandwagon and say, “yes, we need more.” But much of this stance is based on a loose foundation of data. Do we really need more BAs? Or do we need more post-secondary opportunities that parallel the diversity of tomorrow’s workforce, not just the gold-standard that is more pleasing to the eye (and the pocketbook)?
In this example, Canada's got it right. While we aren't the best at everything and could argue that some things we don't do well at all, we’ve got this one down pat. Post-secondary education that embraces more than a university education makes much better economic sense in this global economy.
So, America, remember this—in post-secondary education, we’re number one.
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 Opportunity 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.
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