_ Privatization behind gov't

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British Columbia

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Cuts to colleges

Some 6,000 to 7,000 potential students
will not be able to enter the province’s col-
leges and institutes next academic year
because of the provincial government’s

severe” underfunding of the system, the
President of the faculty union has charged.

Paul Ramsey of the College-Institute
Educators of B.C. said thousands of appli-
cants were turned away during the “enrol-
ment crisis” last year.

3 The obvious agenda of the government
1S privatization,” he said.

Ramsey said the number of private trade
schools in the province has doubled since
the funding crunch hit colleges back in 1983.

_In the meantime, a report from the pro-
vincial New Democrats observes, enrol-
ment has risen 29 per cent.

Ramsey charged that the government is
underfunding education for some 70,000
full-time and part-time college students by
10 per cent,

The governing boards of the province's
community colleges and trade institutions
agree, Ina recent report to Advanced Edu-
cation Minister Stan Hagen they urged the
government to expand the capacity of the
college system.

Failure to do so, warned the report, will
mean that the “level of unmet demand
-- Will be at least as high as in 1987-88.”

But the faculty union says the govern-
ment has chosen to ignore the confidential
report, entitled, British Columbia Colleges
and Institutes Enrolment Planning 1988/89.

The report, from the British Columbia
Association of Colleges, called for funding
to enable a 7.7 per cent increase over the
41,388 FTEs — full-time equivalent spaces
— available now. That would be 3,200
EGE,

The minister evidently ignored the
report, which was submitted before the

government set the 1988-89 budget for col-
leges in April by the members of the
government-appointed college boards, the
CIEA said in a release.

The educator’s union noted that the sys-
tem received $287.1 million — an increase
of only 0.89 per cent over the 1987-88 fund-
ing level.

“Within that amount colleges will receive
a 3.5 per cent lift to operating budget to
cover inflation, but substantial cuts will be
made to BCIT’s (B.C. Institute of Technol-
ogy) operating budget, to the budget to
replace equipment at colleges, and to other
programs,” the CIEA stated.

“The budget increase is below that
needed just to cover inflation, and the total
number of FTEs will remain at 1987-88
levels,” it noted.

Ramsey said the college administrators’
report showed they “are saying privately
precisely what faculty and students are say-
ing publicly — our colleges and institutes
are severely underfunded, that there is not
enough space in post-secondary education
programs to meet the demand, and thou-
sands of students will not get the education
they need next fall.”

Not all federal funds earmarked for post-
secondary education find their way into the
college system, Ramsey noted. Federal
payments for B.C. colleges, institutes and
universities have risen 66 per cent — to
$615 million in 1988-89 from $370 million in
the 1981-82 academic year.

Meanwhile, inflation in Vancouver rose
45 per cent, according to Statistics Canada,
Ramsey said.

In that period, provincial funding for col-
leges’ operating budgets rose by only
slightly more than one per cent, Ramsey
noted.

Government underfunding has caused

Sanadian
CFS erin
Students

CFS MEMBERS IN WALK FOR PEACE, APRIL 23... students face massive tuition

hikes from Socred cutbacks

chaos on campuses. Recently faculty at
Douglas College withheld students’ final
grades to protest lack of progress in talks for
a new collective agreement. The action was
intended to create a backlog for the college’s
registrar. Students received notice of their
marks in individual letters from faculty
members.

The Douglas College student society was
supporting the faculty action.

But even more serious on that campus
was the likelihood of a 30 per cent hike in
tuition for the next academic term. Student
union leaders were up in arms and planning
to discuss the issue with other college stu-
dent leaders in the Canadian Federation of
Students.

Ramsey said the cuts to the college sys-
tem has seen the number of private trade
schools increase to some 400, almost double
the number five years ago. Those institutes
enrol some 40,000 students a year in courses
such as secretarial, hairdressing and baking.

The government does not directly subsid-
ize private institutes — as it does with pri-
vate secondary schools — but changes to

the student financial aid means students at
those institutions now qualify for loans,
Ramsey noted. “But fees for those schools
are three to four times the amount charged
by a public college, so you can imagine the
debt that piles up for those students.”

He said a 10-month secretarial course
that cost $800 at a provincial college will
cost in the neighbourhood of $3,000 at a
private trade school.

“Someone’s benefitting from this, but it
certainly isn’t the public,” Ramsey said.

He noted the advanced education minis-
ter has struck a task force to examine post-
secondary education needs. But the college
teachers’ president called the move “a
cover-up.

“The minister already has the informa-
tion. The real problem is the underfunding
of the post-secondary system,” Ramsey
said.

He noted there are no plans to make the
report, due May 13, available to the public.

Ramsey called the college cutbacks “part
of the government’s agenda to cut social
services.”

New opportunity for

By REG WALTERS

If you are not a student at one of the
college or university campuses in B.C. you
may, as many British Columbians do,
think that the whole post-secondary edu-
cation system has come through the past
period of restraint facing some hardships
but has emerged basically unharmed.

_ The five-per-cent increase to universi-
ties in March of this year by the Social
Credit government was a slick political
Move designed to foster that perception.
The reaction from many people concerned
with the state of post-secondary education
in the province, but with only a cursory
knowledge of its problems, has been to
give a small sigh of relief at the increase
announcement.

Many believe that, finally, Premier Bill
Vander Zalm has realized that for B.C. to
play a vital economic role in the Pacific
Rim, the government must restore finding
to the universities and colleges. The hike
has fooled many into thinking the draco-
nian attack by the Socreds on post-
secondary education is subsiding.

Nothing could be further from the
truth. In the past week the Canadian Fed-

eration of Students (CFS), which repres- °

ents 50,000 students on 13 campuses in
B.C., has released shocking findings from
its four-month study of post-secondary
education in B.C.

The 34-page study, entitled, The Qual-
ity of Post-Secondary Education in British

Columbia: A Consumers Report, sur-
veyed 200 university and college instruc-
tors, 50 educational experts, support staff,
administrative workers, librarians and
many students. The impetus for the study
was the registration crisis last September,
which saw large numbers of students
turned away from colleges or forced to
accept courses they neither wanted or
needed on both college and university
campuses.

The report proves that the recent fund-
ing increase is a sham.

Between 1981-1987 the cost of living
rose almost 45 per cent while funds allo-
cated for operating the university and col-
lege campuses rose only 16.5 per cent. In
the past six years, campuses have faced a
28-per-cent cut to their budgets.

The Socred government in March gave
five per cent to universities and virtually
no increase to colleges. Administrators
have scrambled to find places where cuts
can be absorbed, but as the report states,
“the reality at most post-secondary institu-
tions is that every decision is made with the
knowledge that some part of the system is
going to suffer as a result.”

Other findings in the report highlight
the significance of that statement. Eighty-
four per cent of the faculty surveyed noted
that savings had been effected by increas-
ing class sizes and instructor workloads.
Ninety-one per cent of college instructors
noted the same.

Additionally, 82 per cent of faculty

student-faculty unity

noted an extension of their hours to han- °
dle the workload. They reported that the
quality of examination and teaching, and
the use of “essay exams” and term papers
had decreased 24 per cent. Meanwhile, 43
per cent of the instructors who use multi-
ple choice exams say their use of these has
increased significantly since 1984 to com-
pensate for the time constraints and larger
class sizes.

The resources available for learning
have sharply declined, with a 76-per-cent
decline in the availability of serials on uni-
versity campuses. The University of B.C.
recently announced that the campus dis-
continued 900 journals in 1986 alone.

The enthusiasm, commitment, and
morale of the teaching and support staff
cannot be restored by small increases to
badly cut resources.

What needs to be addressed is the role
and style of student leadership to mobilize
the thousands of students on B.C. cam-
puses. There is no doubt that the CFS
report is indispensable ammunition in the
battle against the Socreds. But the ques-
tion that must be addressed — preferably
at the national CFS meeting May 9-14 in
Victoria — is: “‘where the hell is the
battle?”

Nationally, the question of confronting
cutbacks has taken on even more impor-
tance as the federal government moves to
lop $5.5 million from its payments for
post-secondary education during the next
five years. And students should be tackling

the Tories’ free trade agreement and
Meech Lake constitutional accord, which
will lead to further cutbacks and the de
facto privatization of our campuses.

Never has there existed such potential
for faculty-student co-operation in an
anti-cutbacks struggle. There is broad
public sentiment in support of those who
are championing the cause of improved
post-secondary education. The time is ripe
for a campaign among students, crossing
all political lines, to demand a sharp
increase in funding to the campuses.

The questions that student delegates
and student leaders must ask at the annual
national CFS conference are: “What type
of leadership is needed in the upcoming
years?” “Has the past leadership led an
effective fightback?” “What forms of
fightback should be adopted?”

One likely conclusion from such an
examination would be that the past CFS
national leadership has been too passive.
It has given poor leadership to provincial
bodies and must be strengthened with
people who are willing to mobilize stu-
dents in political action that will defeat the
right-wing political forces dismantling
Canada’s education system.

Only by choosing a more militant
course will the leadership mobilize stu-
dents and stop the deterioration of our
campuses.

Reg Walters is the secretary of the Young
Communist League in British Columbia.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

Pacific Tribune, May 4, 1988 « 3