What price a degree?
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 469.
Read the article and say in what way the situation in Canada is different from the situation in Great Britain and why.
ADDITIONAL READING
Article 1
Ontario's student bulge
For Ontario's school leavers, the biggest headache this month is whether they are going to be awarded a place to start university in September. This year, the competition is abnormally tough. Ontario's Conservative government has decided to fall into line with other provinces, and do away with Grade 13, the final year of high school.
In its place, three years ago the provincial government offered its 19 universities an extra C$2.5 billion ($1.7 billion) to expand. Frantic building of laboratories and classrooms followed. For example, Carleton University, in Ottawa, is ready to take 5,700 students in September, up from 4,600 last year. It wants to hire 60 more teachers by July, and 40 temporary ones. It is tapping retired civil servants and businessmen who would like to teach for two or three years, says Stuart Adam, the vicepresident for academic affairs. He hopes to keep the teacher-student ratio at 1 to 24.
Even without the Ontario student bulge, Canada's universities were straining to keep up with rising demand. Young Canadians appear to have listened to the government's preaching that prosperity depends on "the knowledge economy". Over the past decade, university enrolment has increased by 20%, or more than 100,000; it is set to grow by another 200,000 in the coming decade. Enrolment is up even in provinces like Newfoundland whose population is declining. In Ontario, about 30% of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 already attend university, one of the highest rates in the country.
More does not necessarily mean better. William Leggett, the principal of Queen's University in Kingston, one of Ontario's (and Canada's) best, points to a growing "quality gap" with the United States, where an average university has one teacher for every 14 students. In Canada, most universities depend for most of their funds on provincial governments. Mr Leggett has called for Ontario to deregulate its universities, removing the cap on fee increases, as several provinces have done.
Opponents argue that students already pay a lot in fees and living expenses, and that fewer grants are available than in the United States. A four-year degree at Queen's can cost more than C$30,000; it charges $13,000 a year for medical school. But that has not prevented it from drawing students from far and wide.
Queen's is not adding to its 14,000 places this year. Less fashionable colleges in northern Ontario and in the Atlantic provinces hope for a windfall crop of students with better than normal grades. Ontario's bulge ought also to prompt a wider debate about university funding. But that looks unlikely.
Answer the following questions.
· Do you think it wise to keep the teacher-student ratio at 1 to 24? Could any other ratio be better and why?
· Do you believe that prosperity depends on "the knowledge economy"? Give your reasons.