Challenges in Canadian Post-secondary Education

Resources

  • News release
  • Monograph (PDF, 1.4 MB)

    • In 2009–2010, CCL is launching a monograph series entitled Challenges in Canadian Post-secondary Education which focuses on important considerations identified in CCL's previous reports on the state of post-secondary education in Canada.

    fit PSE Challenges


    The Challenge of Demonstrating Quality in Canadian Post-secondary Education

    This inaugural monograph discusses the complex challenges associated with defining and demonstrating quality in PSE.

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    Overview

    Background

    As a starting point for a national dialogue, CCL published three annual reports on the state of post-secondary education in Canada over the last four years. These reports provided an overview of the Canadian PSE landscape while highlighting various issues common among education jurisdictions and institutions.

    When viewed holistically, Canada lacks a clear and common understanding of the future directions and top priorities of its post-secondary education (PSE) sector. Perhaps as a result, Canada has not yet comprehensively addressed a fundamental question: How do we demonstrate quality in PSE?

    Answering this question requires clarification of many issues, including the roles that various institutions and sectors play. It also requires the development of a shared vision of PSE, of what can and should be achieved. Despite much discussion among leaders of various education sectors in Canada, an agreement on a plan of action has yet to be reached.

    About this Article

    While Canadian PSE enjoys a reputation for quality, Canada lacks an informational framework through which to understand, measure or clearly demonstrate the quality of its PSE sector. This situation poses challenges for:

    • institutions seeking to demonstrate clearly the quality of their services to the public;
    • students, who need access to clear information about quality to make the right PSE choices; and
    • governments demonstrating accountability to the public for the systems under their stewardship.

    Developing a pan-Canadian framework for understanding quality in PSE may be necessary to promote and improve Canada’s PSE sector, while ensuring also that students can make decisions about how best to meet their educational aspirations.

    Conclusions

    • An understanding of quality in Canada’s PSE sector requires a clear and common appreciation of PSE’s role and purpose within this country, and of the contributions of various institutions and sectors.

    • The fact that Canada’s PSE sector is complex, largely because of its multiple jurisdictions, does not nullify the sector’s obligation to demonstrate its quality through methods that Canadians and the world can understand fully.

    • A Canada-wide framework for demonstrating quality need not impinge upon provincial and territorial jurisdiction over education, or upon the autonomy of post-secondary institutions. Nor would such a framework necessarily require a single, all-encompassing approach.

    • Canada's colleges and universities have strong internal quality-assurance procedures, but CCL believes it necessary to develop a more comprehensive system for external quality assurance that is consistent with emerging international frameworks.

    • Various provinces are developing more sophisticated, system-wide data management strategies through which post-secondary systems may be better understood, a positive development toward better Canadian data.

    • As better data systems are developed, it should be possible to design a Canada-wide quality-measurement system that aligns with the common goals held among Canadian jurisdictions.

    • A high proportion (71%) of Canadians believes that post-secondary institutions in Canada are doing a good or excellent job in delivering quality education. However, these same Canadians may not be able to understand what quality is and why our post-secondary systems are of high quality.

    • A pro-active stance is critical if Canada is to avoid the risk of falling behind other countries that embraced this important imperative of economic and social well-being―quality and improvement in post-secondary education.

     

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