Canadian Council on Learning | Conseil Canadien sur l'Apprentissage

Canadian Post-secondary Education
A Positive Record – An Uncertain Future

Chapter 6 highlights

Quality post-secondary education and training

A well-educated population is one of the greatest competitive advantages countries have in the 21st century. Canada currently benefits from having one of the highest participation rates in post-secondary education in the world. However, participation is only one element of the equation. Escalating educational requirements, shifting demographic patterns and a projected shortfall of skilled workers within the decade require that Canada’s post-secondary education and training be of the highest quality possible to ensure Canada’s continued competitiveness.

Student, graduate, and employer surveys demonstrate high levels of satisfaction with the quality of Canadian PSE. However, Canada requires more objective and direct measures to assess quality. This challenge applies to most countries, many of which are devoting significant attention to achieving a better understanding of quality.

The U.S. and most European countries have developed quality assurance systems, including mechanisms to measure the quality of qualifications. Canada has no such formally established system at the national level. As a result, some Canadian post-secondary institutions may choose to apply for accreditation through American regional accrediting bodies to demonstrate their competitive ranking and to market their programs internationally. Such a trend could potentially erode Canadian content, language, culture and identity.

Delivering post-secondary education of good quality figures prominently in the strategic plans of individual post-secondary institutions and provincial ministries responsible for advanced education. The issue of defining and assessing quality is tightly linked to questions of accountability, value for money, and the efficiency and effectiveness of programs.

Several factors can affect the quality of PSE and should be tracked and assessed. However, we do not consistently collect information on these factors. For example, Canada needs a better understanding of the dynamics of PSE attrition and completion—who drops out, why they drop out, where they go, and whether they come back and complete their credential later or elsewhere.

There are a number of issues that affect quality that are specifically related to faculty:

• Faculty numbers in Canada have not kept pace with growing enrolment; as a result, many post-secondary institutions are increasing class sizes and relying on part-time or sessional instructors rather than full-time faculty.
• The pending retirement of aging faculty presents significant problems for faculty renewal over the next 10 years.
• Increased priority given to research limits the teaching time of tenured, full-time faculty, especially at the undergraduate level.

Data need to be updated and analyzed on: expenditure figures; comprehensive student numbers by PSE sector over time; enrolment per full-time faculty; faculty qualifications; detailed graduation and dropout rates, by gender and socio-economic background. As well, there is a need for a consistent methodology to measure student assessment of quality, student satisfaction and the effectiveness of the learning provided, measured directly in terms of the “value added” through pursuit of post-secondary education. Instruments such as the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) offer promising possibilities for measuring quality more directly, and refinement and application of these and other such tools should be pursued as a matter of priority.

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