Please read the following newspaper article about the same story.
Then answer the questions on the critical_reading.pdf. You do not need to summarize the articles.
Most Ontario university students prefer four-year bachelor degrees, survey finds
Published On Thu Feb 23 2012
Kristin Rushowy Education Reporter
A majority of university students don’t like shorter, three-year degrees — and most take longer than the standard four years to complete a degree as it is, says a new study that comes just as a government paper suggests making four years of post-secondary education a thing of the past.
“Generally speaking, Ontario university students are of the opinion that four-year degrees are more valuable than the shorter, three-year degrees,” says the study by Higher Education Strategy Associates, released Tuesday by an arms-length research and advisory group created by the province.
In Ontario, about 94 per cent of university students graduate with a four-year honours bachelor degree, the study found, but less than half had finished that degree in four years.
And among the 850-plus students surveyed, some 64 per cent said four years has the most value, 29 per cent said the two degrees are of equal value, and five per cent felt the shorter bachelor degree was preferable.
The province’s Ministry of Colleges and Universities is looking at reforming the post-secondary system. As the Star reported Wednesday, it has a discussion paper outlining ways to do so, including the shorter degree, year-round classes as well as allowing students to earn more than half of their credits online.
While the recommendations have yet to go out for public consultation, professors and students are already raising concerns about the quality of such changes and the effects they would have on students.
Students surveyed by the higher education group said the three-year degree, while allowing them to get out into the workforce faster and save a year of tuition, was also seen as inferior with a heavier, compressed workload and concerns were raised that they would miss out on the “university experience.”
The study notes “there are already a number of avenues open to students wishing to complete their degrees more quickly, but in practice they are rarely used.
“Changing degree lengths is something that is actually quite difficult to do and requires a great deal of work in terms of realigning curricula at each institution. It is not something to be undertaken lightly.”
The study mentions trends overseas, where many European countries have moved to three-year degrees as has Australia, but said while students graduate into the labour market faster, unemployment remains an issue.
Constance Adamson of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations said universities are already doing a lot of remediation work with first-year students to get them up to speed as it is.
“We are already feeling the lack of the (fifth year of high school), and by taking university degrees from four years to three, you are essentially reducing the amount of education students are going to get.”
She also said that shorter degrees could hinder students’ ability to pursue graduate work elsewhere.
“It’s sort of churning them through, fast-tracking them through into an uncertain labour market.”
About a decade ago, the University of Toronto abolished three-year bachelor degrees, in part because the Ontario government eliminated the fifth year of high school, but also to “protect the integrity, the depth and breadth” of an undergraduate education and to give students the time to develop critical thinking and analytical skills.
At the time, it said four years is the North American standard.
However, about 100 American schools are moving to the compressed degree given the tough economic times amid increasing demands for post-secondary credentials.
The study notes that shorter doesn’t mean less expensive because there is a cost to redesigning courses and programs.
“This approach also entails a much clearer bias in favour of sacrificing program breadth in order to reduce time spent, and since breadth is a much-defended feature of American undergraduate education, it is not easily sacrificed,” it says.
In the fall of 2011, just 44 programs at eight universities in Ontario offered three-year programs.
Last month, the University of Guelph began looking into the possibility of three-year degrees as part of a working group looking into many current issues facing universities.
“We are trying to be responsive; we need to review and see what’s happening in other jurisdictions and see if it’s applicable in our own backyard,” said Maureen Mancuso, provost and vice-president of academics.
She also said the university will survey students to see if this is something they want.
Editorial: Three-year degrees will only devalue Ontario education
Published On Thu Feb 23 2012
Zimmerman/Toronto Star
Toronto Star Editorial
For years now, Premier Dalton McGuinty has been saying that a strong education system will enable Ontarians to successfully compete for jobs in a globalized knowledge-based economy. So where is the benefit in diminishing the value of an Ontario university degree?
A government discussion paper, obtained by the Star’s Kristin Rushowy, proposes that universities cut most undergraduate degrees from four years to three and allow students to earn more than half their credits online.
This seems to fly in the face of the Liberals’ election promise to double the amount of time teachers spend earning their accreditation. If teachers need more time to learn their craft, why would everyone else suddenly need less? Colleges and University Minister Glen Murray will have to provide a good answer to that question when this paper is released for public discussion in March. If not, it will be hard to resist the conclusion that this proposal isn’t about improving education at all – just a desire to make it cheaper.
That’s not to say, though, that everything is fine with Ontario’s university and college system. Far from it. But what’s needed is substantial change in how institutions operate, not the seemingly easy fix of lopping a year off a degree. Most students aren’t managing to graduate in four years as it is, so trying to shove them into a cap and gown even faster seems destined to fail.
As economist Don Drummond pointed out in his report on reforming public services, post-secondary enrollment is expected to rise faster than government funding to support it. Universities and colleges will be expected to do more with less. The only hope of achieving that, without compromising quality, is changing how they operate.
That means refocusing limited resources so that professors spend more time teaching students and less pursuing research with dubious benefits. Too often now, the success of an academic career can almost be measured by how few students a professor has to deal with.
Online learning also offers great potential, but decisions on using it more should be based on how it improves the experience for students—not just how it can cut costs. Many students in introductory sociology, for example, would welcome the ability to cover some material online at home. It’s not as though they’re getting personal attention in a class of 500 students or more.
The discussion paper sensibly proposes that universities operate year-round, offering a true summer semester to accommodate more students and use campus infrastructure more efficiently. Many changes, including that one, have been raised before and too little progress has been made.
The minister has a challenging dual role in all this. He will have to do battle with institutions that hunker down at the mere mention of reduced funds or changing how they educate students. At the same time, he must make sure that a desire to cut provincial spending does not damage a university system that is respected worldwide.
Devaluing an Ontario degree would put our students at a disadvantage. That’s the last thing we can afford.
Drummond promises less money, reduced flexibility for cash-strapped Ontario universities
Published On Thu Feb 23 2012
Patrick J. Monahan
As Don Drummond’s landmark report on the reform of Ontario’s public services bluntly notes, universities in Ontario are on a financially unsustainable path.
Costs have been rising at a rate of about 5 per cent per cent annually, mainly driven by compensation increases, but government funding on a per student basis has not risen in more than a decade. Even with tuition increasing at around 5 per cent a year, universities are faced each year with a 2-3 per cent gap between expenditures and revenues. Most universities have attempted to close this gap by cutting budgets and taking in more students, resulting in larger class sizes and increasing reliance on part-time faculty.
What is disappointing about Drummond’s report is that having clearly identified the pressing fiscal challenges facing universities, he fails to propose a strategy for successfully addressing them.
First, while Drummond proposes that government funding to post-secondary institutions increase at an annual rate of 1.5 per cent, he projects enrolment growth of 1.7 per cent annually. Thus, Drummond is actually proposing to reduce government grants on a per student basis, despite the fact that, as he acknowledges, government grants to universities in Ontario are the lowest in Canada. Even if tuition were to continue to increase at 5 per cent (as Drummond recommends), the annual shortfall between expenditures and revenues would widen to the point where universities would be forced to make drastic cuts that would undermine quality.
Drummond does propose a reduction in bargained compensation increases in the university sector in order to “align them with trends in more recent settlements in the broader public sector.” But he offers no mechanism or framework that might produce this result, other than to suggest that government should “work with the sector,” an approach that has been tried many times in the past with minimal concrete results. He also proposes that universities refocus resources and rewards towards teaching. This kind of refocusing might be possible in an environment where resources were expanding, but seems totally unrealistic in a context where overall resources available to universities are shrinking.
At the same time as Drummond proposes less money for universities, he also recommends reducing the flexibility of institutions through negotiation of “mandate agreements”. In theory, these mandate agreements would set out clear expectations and roles for each university and encourage differentiation within the sector. In practice, however, this kind of framework would likely privilege the status quo, make innovation and change more difficult, and limit the ability of universities to respond to changing circumstances.
For example, my home institution, York University, is planning a major expansion in our summer semester offerings in 2012, in light of the fact that the government grant of $800 will be available to students who may be attending university elsewhere during the academic year but are residing in the GTA in the summer. But if we had negotiated a mandate agreement that failed to envisage this possibility, we would likely be required to obtain the approval of the government before proceeding. This could lead to delay and effectively block initiative, thereby depriving students of the opportunity to access the government tuition grant this summer.
In short, Drummond’s report clearly identifies the urgent problems facing Ontario universities. The danger is that the government will see the report as justifying a simple cost-cutting exercise, which will only exacerbate the universities’ unsustainable fiscal position without giving them the tools they need to attempt to deal with the challenges they face.
Ont. universities should move 1/3 of courses online: report
The Canadian Press
Date: Wednesday Feb. 22, 2012 5:08 PM ET
TORONTO — A report before the Ontario government is calling for universities and colleges to move a third of their courses online -- a proposal that's received a failing grade from a prominent students' organization.
The draft report obtained by The Canadian Press calls for a shift toward web-based learning that would have students take up to three courses out of five online each semester.
"As the world of online learning expands, Ontario will be at the forefront of this digital, portable and low-cost alternative," reads the document, which was prepared for the ministry that oversees post-secondary education.
It advises that "approximately one-third of courses each year be available online and count toward a student's undergraduate degree."
The courses would be offered through each institution and the province's long-promised Ontario Online Institute, which has yet to materialize even though it was slated to launch last summer.
The policy paper, which hasn't been released to the public, lays out three main strategies meant to "revolutionize Ontario's university system" over the next three years as the province grapples with mounting financial pressures.
Dubbed "3x3," it recommends emphasizing three-year undergraduate degrees and bulking up the summer semester to promote year-round schooling -- measures also suggested by economist Don Drummond in his report on government cost-cutting.
Under the plan, participating schools should improve productivity by three per cent for each of three years, the document reads. Schools that opt out of the program would be required to find three per cent in savings each year.