Post-Secondary Education in Canada: Strategies for Success. Report on Learning in Canada 2007
Author: Canadian Council on Learning
Date: 2007-12-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Strategic Planning,Higher Education,Prior Learning,Quality Control,Foreign Countries,Student Mobility,Educational Objectives,Educational Indicators,Statistical Data,Labor Force,Private Schools,Enrollment,Graduates,Community Colleges,College Faculty,Part Time Faculty,Benchmarking,Educational Quality,Accreditation (Institutions),College Credits,College Transfer Students

In 2006, the Canadian Council on Learning produced the first national overview of post-secondary education in Canada. The report, &quot;Canadian Post-secondary Education: A Positive Record--An Uncertain Future,&quot; identified eight goals and objectives derived from the strategic plans for post-secondary education (PSE) that had been developed by provinces and territories--and presented a series of indicators for each of the eight goals. It cautioned that serious challenges exist and must be resolved with urgency to keep Canada at the forefront educationally and economically. The report underlined that, in order for Canada to advance as a country, it is essential to: (1) articulate a set of explicit, well-defined goals and objectives for the PSE sector at the national level; (2) develop a clear set of indicators and measures to enable continuous assessment of performance and progress toward the defined goals and objectives; and (3) establish mechanisms at the national level that accomplish the tasks in the preceding two points. &quot;Strategies for Success,&quot; the second annual report from the Canadian Council on Learning on the post-secondary education sector in Canada, builds on the priorities identified last year. Like the 2006 report, Part I of &quot;Strategies for Success&quot; examines the sector from a countrywide perspective, drawing on domestic and international statistics and indicators for the eight identified goals and objectives for PSE. While some modest gains have been made, Canadians can take little comfort from this year's findings. This country has fundamental data gaps. For example, Canada: (1) does not have the information required to assess PSE capacity versus labour-market needs; (2) has no useful picture of the country's private providers of PSE (who they are, what they do, their capacity, their enrolment figures, what happens to their graduates); (3) has very little information since 1999 about its community colleges regarding faculty, enrolment or capacity; and (4) can provide only a limited picture of part-time faculty at its universities. To remedy the incomplete picture of the PSE landscape, Part II of &quot;Strategies for Success&quot; proposes a comprehensive, pan-Canadian data strategy to provide the information needed to strengthen the country's PSE sector. Part III of &quot;Strategies for Success&quot; outlines how some of Canada's major trading partners are monitoring and reporting on the state of PSE in their countries. Any complacency about Canada's positive record in PSE is misplaced, given that many countries have developed: (1) national strategies for collecting robust data; (2) national goals for PSE; and (3) benchmarks and targets with which to measure progress toward those goals. That Canada's global competitors have developed such systematic approaches to optimize the benefits of PSE only heightens the urgency for practical steps to be taken within Canadian borders. It is in this context that Part IV of &quot;Strategies for Success&quot; proposes, as the section title suggests, working &quot;Toward a Pan-Canadian Framework for PSE.&quot; It examines how a more cohesive and systematic approach could assist in addressing specific challenges, including: quality assurance and accreditation; student mobility and credit transfer; and prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR). A bibliography is included. Individual parts contain endnotes. (Contains 62 tables and 75 tables.) [For related report, &quot;Canadian Post-Secondary Education: A Positive Record--An Uncertain Future. Report on Learning in Canada 2006,&quot; see ED525257.]