Canadian Council on Learning | Conseil Canadien sur l'Apprentissage

Canada’s PSE performance: file under “m” for missing

Sept. 20, 2007 Ottawa—Canada has no clear picture of how our post-secondary education is faring on the international stage due to a striking absence of key information, says the Canadian Council on Learning.

In an annual education report released this week by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Canada was unable to report figures for 60 percent of the information gathered by the other 39 countries covered by the report.

The 400-page report, called Education at a Glance, makes it difficult to ignore the current information gap. The report looks at 96 indicators related to PSE, and Canada was unable to provide data for 57 of these. In these tables Canada is represented by a lower case “m”— for “missing data.”

Although Canada spent $34 billion on PSE during 2007, we lack the data needed for a proper evaluation of our performance in this key sector.

“We can’t conduct the analysis—and neither can the OECD—because Canada can’t supply even the most basic information,” says Paul Cappon, President and CEO of the Canadian Council on Learning.

• Canada ranks last among the 40 OECD member and partner countries when it comes to the amount of PSE information provided for the annual survey—behind countries as varied as the United States, Luxembourg, Chile and Croatia.
• Canada failed to provide any information on participation, enrolment or graduation in our colleges
• We also lacked sufficient data for dropout rates in our colleges and universities
• Canada submitted only two of 28 indicators related to public and private investment in PSE
• Canada was unable to provide any information to the OECD about who participates in our post-secondary education system.

There are three main reasons for this shortfall. In some cases Canada does not collect the information at all. In others, data are gathered, but either too late for the report's deadline or not in a way that is harmonized with the OECD's needs. 

The need for better data has been underscored in two recent provincial reports on post-secondary education: B.C.'s Campus 2020 report, issued in April 2007; and the Advantage New Brunswick report, released last week (see quotations below).

Without immediate action to address this information deficit, Canada will not be equipped to make the right decisions and investments in our post-secondary education sector.

“Post-secondary education is vital to Canada’s future prosperity and social cohesion,” says Cappon. "If we can’t assess our performance in comparison to other countries, Canada risks falling behind.”

Quotations from the Campus 2020 and Advantage New Brunswick reports

"Recommendation 8: Initiate discussions with other governments with a view to obtaining agreement on the collection and reporting of nationally and internationally comparable standards and metrics for data collection and reporting."

—From Campus 2020 – Thinking Ahead: The Report, by Geoff Plant, April 2007

"The lifeblood of good policy is good information. Good information, in turn, requires accurate data carefully analysed. The collection of accurate and meaningful data, analysed to yield information useful for policy development, must be an important function of the proposed commission."

—From the Advantage New Brunswick report, by the Commission on Post-Secondary Education in New Brunswick, September 2007

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The Canadian Council on Learning is an independent, not-for-profit corporation funded through an agreement with Human Resources and Social Development Canada. Its mandate is to promote and support evidence-based decisions about learning throughout all stages of life, from early childhood through to the senior years.

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