Performance Targets for Post Seconday

January 22 2020

Sent to Demetrios Nicolaides and Pat Rehn

It was with dismay that I read your press release yesterday announcing that Alberta's post secondary funding will be tied to performance.

The headline reads "A new outcomes-based post-secondary funding approach will increase transparency and accountability and help build a modern and diverse workforce for the future."

Performance measures may include:

• graduate employment rate
• median graduate income
• graduate skills and competencies
• work-integrated learning opportunities
• administrative expense ratio
• sponsored research revenue
• enrolment (including potential targets for domestic students, international students and under-represented learners)

I strongly object to basing funding on the performance measures you have identified. Yes, part of the goal of any education system is to provide citizens with skills and knowledge for the workplace, but it is so much more than that. I would direct you to think about he motto of the University of Alberta - "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things"

I further suggest you consider the words of former U of A president Henry Marshall Tory who described the role of the university as the"uplifting of the whole people".

You yourself have identified that you have a Bachelor of the Arts and a PhD in Political Science. Do these programmes have high job placement rates immediately after graduation? Do they integrate work-integrated learning opportunities? Should they?

My three kids are graduates of the University of Alberta. One has a degree in Chemical Engineering that she has never used. Despite having a PhD from Cambridge and an excellent job in the private sector in the UK, one of her deepest regrets is how limited her U of A Education was since it was entirely focused on engineering. My second child spent 6 years experimenting with numerous courses until she found the right fit. The third has a Comp Sci degree but found great meaning in the arts courses he took, including Latin and Philosophy. Would their alma mater under this new model be funded to provide them with a range of programming that might not directly relate to the world of work?

Our post secondary institutions should provide students with a well rounded education. This education should give them the opportunity to be the best people they can be. Some of the best lessons we learn are not necessarily job related. Because human beings are not their jobs. They are not designed just to be parts in the economic engine of the province. The meaning of their lives should not be their work- because when that happens and jobs disappear, both individuals and societies break down.

I know my visions of post secondary do not align with that of your government. However, I would like to make my views known.

Sincerely,