Academically speaking, Canada is on a road to nowhere. We have no national education plan, and thus no goals or benchmarks for education and no way to determine the future of our labour force.

The Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) argues this lack of direction is increasing illiteracy, while decreasing innovation and weakening our economy.

Their solution?

A national council of provincial, territorial and federal learning ministers who will set goals, advised by an independent monitoring body of education and social organizations that will report to both government and the public.

The idea isn't without its critics, who argue any government body runs the risk of falling victim to neo-liberal desires to decrease education costs and increase worker output, limiting creative expression and alternative forms of learning in favour of conveyor belt education.

But with the CCL set to close up shop next spring, will the Canadian government even care what the education watchdog has to say anymore?

Slipping down the learning curve: Cappon

In the spring of 2010, the Canadian government announced it would cease to fund the independent CCL, the national education watchdog that had been formed in 2002 under then prime minister Jean Chretien's Liberal government to monitor education successes and failures in Canada, and to offer solutions to those failures.

The CCL's final report, What is the Future of Learning in Canada?, outlines where Canada has succeeded and where it continues to fail in early childhood, primary, secondary, post-secondary and tertiary education.

Paul Cappon, executive director of the CCL, is currently touring the country presenting to educators, aboriginal groups, business leaders and politicians about the paper's findings.

He was at the University of British Columbia on Oct. 28, and in the spirit of the Halloween weekend, focused on the gloomy statistics.

"If I'm focusing on a lot of the challenges, it's because many challenges are there. And indeed we have entitled the executive summary of this report, 'Canada's Slipping Down the International Learning Curve,' " he told an audience of educators and students.

In a nutshell, Cappon says Canada is falling behind in multiple areas: 42 per cent of Canadians perform under level three literacy in international tests; there is no co-ordination between the provinces, levels of government, institutions, and the private and public sectors on learning needs; national data collection is poor; and there is no national education quality assurance.

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A medical doctor by trade, Cappon says he saw this lack of planning first hand in hospitals in the early 1990s, where they knew they would have a shortage of doctors and nurses in the coming years, yet medical schools continued to decrease the number of students they accepted.

There are few national statistics on what post-secondary students are studying, where they go when they drop out or what degrees are getting students jobs in Canada.

"That has implications for learners, for institutions, for employers, for governments. If you don't know how many graduates you have in any particular field, how can you possibly meet the national labour market demand and supply?" Cappon asks.

In early childhood and grade school, Cappon argues we need to harmonize education across the provinces, to create a national set of minimal learning outcomes. But he is quick to note this does not mean standardization.

"Because we don't have a convergent set of learning outcomes, especially in key areas, it's very difficult to set the international criteria and international standards as high as they need to be, which is why I predict we will continue to decline, rather than join other countries in standardized testing through the (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development)," he says.

In order to form education goals, there needs to be something to replace the CCL as an education monitor. Cappon proposes a "Council of Ministers on Learning" -- a group of federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for learning. Currently, provincial education ministers meet once every seven years, a system that Cappon says "doesn't do anything to coordinate employment policy and education policy."

The council would be advised by an independent national monitoring body, made up of educators, social organizations and aboriginal groups, representing every education sector, which would report to the government and the public, as well as governmental and non-governmental consultation groups.