Rae review: show us the money.

Presidents of post-secondary institutions in Northern Ontario are hailing the Bob Rae report as a revolutionary blueprint for future education in Ontario.

In the report, A Leader in Learning, Rae calls for the provincial government to make higher education a greater priority putting another $1.82 billion into the system annually.

The investment should include $1.3 billion in new base funding to colleges and universities, a $300-million improvement in student assistance programs, $200 million for building and facility overhauls, $20 million for francophone programs as well as $5 million for First Nations programs.

He suggests that funding should be in place by 2007-08, but Cambrian College president Sylvia Barnard needs to see some of that money right now.

"I need to see a down payment this year," she says. "Absolutely."

Colleges throughout Ontario are looking at a combined $100 million shortfall. Cambrian is shouldering a $5 million debt.

"If they don't give us more funding ... (we will have to) start attacking the infrastructure."

That means doing away with programs that will not be that easy to re-introduce in two years once funding has been set in place. Colleges need the government to phase in funding, not only for the institution, but for the students. It is too late to implement funding for the September 2005 curriculum, but Barnard says the government should be sending strong signals indicating their intent for September 2006.

The funding erosion started approximately 20 years ago with the biggest funding cut in 1994-95. Since then, enrolment has increased 50 per cent, yet they have experienced a 40 per cent erosion in funding.

Even the average funding per student is substantially below the national average. The province allocates $4,700 per student, but the national average is approximately $6,300, Barnard says. Universities receive approximately $6,700 on average.

"Not only are we the lowest (nationwide) but we are the lowest in North America," Barnard says.

Rae compared the province's education standing with neighbouring provinces, northern Europe, Scandinavia and part of the more progressive United States regions. Ontario is behind all of them.

The province would like to think it ranks high, but it does not, and the government needs to do its homework on that issue, according to Nipissing University president Dennis Mock.

He is stumped as to why one of the wealthier provinces has rated eduction as such a low priority.

Mock says the report seized the real needs of post-secondary institutions whether they be colleges or universities.

"Both have been blatantly under-funded for about a decade."

And yet the post-secondary institutions have managed to crank out competent graduates.

"I think that says a lot about the resilience of faculty and of the system," Lakehead University president Frederick Gilbert says.

But post-secondary institutions are at a critical conjuncture, he warns. Without additional funding support, they will not be able to sustain the quality of their products.

Lakehead receives slightly more than $6,000 per student, 17 per cent below the national average.

Gilbert, as the report recommends, would like to see Queen's Park chipping in for graduate students as well as undergrads.

And it is not as if there are no jobs out there. According to Statistics Canada more than 2,734,500 jobs were posted in 2001 and 2,316,700 were filled, leaving 417,800 eliminated because applicants were without a post-secondary education.

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"We need to take 50 per cent of the youth who are not going to post-secondary schools and get them in here," Michael Hill, president of Northern College says.

The industries are crying for more technicians and skilled labourers and all Hill can do is throw his hands up in the air and wait for more funding. If the government could only see it is not a cost but an investment that has huge returns, he laments.

www.raereview.on.ca

By KELLY LOUISEIZE

Northern Ontario Business