Future of Post Secondary Education in BC and Canada
Michael Pidwirny UBCO
Jenny Francis
Jenny Francis, PhD (she/her)
Instructor,
Department of Geography & Geology (Rm. A240a)
Coordinator, Social Science & Humanities Research, Applied Research Centre
Project Director, Immigration
Education and Employment Pathways for International Students in BC
Langara College
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Unceded
xʷməθkʷəy̓əm
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Member of the Editorial Collective at ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies
Sent: Friday, May 6, 2022 1:06 PM
To: Geography Articulation <geography-a...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: {Geography Articulation} Future of Post Secondary Education in BC and Canada
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Michael Pidwirny UBCO
Terence Day
I just ran into Mike at the fish and chip shop down the road from the college. I told him that I disagree with much of what he says in his emails. However, we did agree that this would be a very good and important subject for discussion at the meeting, if we can find time on the agenda.
Cheers,
Terence Day
Okanagan College
From: geography-a...@googlegroups.com <geography-a...@googlegroups.com>
On Behalf Of Michael Pidwirny UBCO
Sent: Friday, May 6, 2022 3:03 PM
To: Geography Articulation <geography-a...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: {Geography Articulation} Future of Post Secondary Education in BC and Canada
Good point Jenny. Yes, many international students use education in Canada as a possible immigration route. Sadly, some of these students who are financially strapped are now complaining 1) it is expensive to do this Canada (and many need local jobs), and 2) jobs are hard to come by Canada because of so many potential candidates.
Some institutions are using internationalization (this term used by our administrators sounds good but is it? - we aren't sending the money we get from these students back to their home countries to improve their post-secondary system!) to boost the money available in their operational budgets. I think this may have been partially pushed by the Federal and Provincial Governments so they can reduce the amount of money they supply to support higher education.
For example, UBC Okanagan was funded by the Government of British Columbia in the 2021-22 academic year for 7,118 full-time equivalent students. Yet actual enrollment numbers were much higher at 11,989 full-time equivalent students. Of this value, 2609 were international students who pay roughly 7.7 times the amount in tuition compared to Canadian domestic students (Arts and Science students, Domestic approximately $5,600 vs International approximately $43,000). International students are potentially adding about 112 million dollars to the operating budget of our campus via tuition (I think a big chunk of this is going to the Vancouver Campus). Currently, international students make up 21% of the student population and our administration has plans to increase this proportion to 40%.
Cheers
Michael
On Friday, May 6, 2022 at 2:25:44 PM UTC-7 Jenny Francis wrote:
6. Education is now a major immigration pathway and the province has no plan/framework for that.
Jenny Francis, PhD (she/her)
Instructor, Department of Geography & Geology (Rm. A240a)
Coordinator, Social Science & Humanities Research, Applied Research Centre
Project Director, Immigration Education and Employment Pathways for International Students in BC
Langara College | snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓
Unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm Territory
Member of the Editorial Collective at ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies
From: geography-a...@googlegroups.com <geography-a...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Michael Pidwirny UBCO <michael....@ubc.ca>
Sent: Friday, May 6, 2022 1:06 PM
To: Geography Articulation <geography-a...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: {Geography Articulation} Future of Post Secondary Education in BC and Canada
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of Langara College. Do not open links or attachments unless you can confirm the content is safe.
Hi All,
One of the items I would like to discuss at the 2022 GEOG Articulation Meeting is the future of our jobs as educators. I believe forces and trends are now in play that could rapidly transform the way Post-Secondary Education is done in BC, Canada, and the USA.
Here is a description of 5 of these forces/trends. Many are operating right now!
1) Class sizes will continue to grow. This growth will be most rapid in larger institutions. Many of these large classes will be virtual and online. My campus showed it could have one (overworked) faculty member deliver introductory chemistry to an online class of 800 students.
2) Larger institutions will join consortiums that deliver low-cost (and low-quality) online courses targeted at students that don't live near such institutions. For example - edX.org.
3) These large institutions will make many of the courses required in the 1st and 2nd year of various programs available online. These online courses will become mandatory. COVID let "the genie out of bottle" and administrators will champion the belief that online courses have the same quality as the live-in-classroom form of instruction.
4) The online courses described in the point above, will be taught mainly by sessionals who will be paid peanuts. Such courses will be , shallow, and water-downed (open education resources and learning materials created with Creative Commons licenses) because of restraints caused by their size, the fact they are online, and the need to make them competitively priced (nothing like a good bargain). These courses will employ technologies to simplify the evaluation and grading of students. Multiple choice, fill in the blank, etc tests will become the norm and students will never be rarely evaluated whether they can express what they learned in sentences and paragraphs.
5) The developments described above will cause small colleges and universities to reduce their offering of university transfer courses and programs (can you say Laurentian University). Some institutions will close their doors for good - just too costly to run. This development will be welcomed by the general public as neoliberal efficiency and responsible use of taxpayers' dollars (more money to go on plane trips around the world and make our planet a warmer place - LOL). Administrators who follow the neoliberal agenda will be showered with pay raises!
Hope my crystal ball is wrong! The following article gives me some hope -
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