A Final Warning from Canada's Watchdog on Schools

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.

Government needs our help

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.

"This can't be done by government alone; anything that's done, any structure that's created has to be involving social partners, civil society and educators," Cappon insisted.

"It has to be supported by people like yourselves from the field who understand in your various domains what really happens and what could happen."

'A push for conservative modernization': Steeves

Many will mourn the loss of the CCL, but not everyone agrees with their final proposals. As part of a panel discussion that took place after Cappon's presentation, Peter Grimmett, head of curriculum and pedagogy in the faculty of education at UBC, laid out his concerns about the plan's reliance on national and international testing for students, and their effects on teachers.

"The heavy emphasis on the auditing of learning has been found in many studies to be a very strong contributor to the many difficulties that people have in their career prospects," he said.

"My point is that the factors that damage the career prospects for teachers arise in many instances from the audit culture that is currently invading our countries."

Similarly, Grimmett argued emphasis should be put on studying instead of learning. Studying "builds our capacity for making choices, for developing focus, for exercising critical judgment, and is so central to a well formed character."

Tobey Steeves, a graduate student at the Centre for Cross-Faculty Inquiries in Education, pointed out the similarities between the push for education "modernization" with those of the neo-liberal and neo-conservative movements.

"I'm reminded of Michael Apple who described kind of what I'm hearing here is a push for conservative modernization, and he linked it with neo-liberalism, neo-conservatism, neo-managerialism and authoritarian populism, and I see this as a very quintessential example of that push towards conservative modernization," he said.

Rob Cliff, a doctoral candidate in education studies, was more alarmed about the involvement of government in the goal-making process. He argued this had failed before in so many other sectors, as government's only interest has been cutting the costs of service delivery.

"What we need to start with is critically looking at what's happening in the policy realm now and having an honest discussion about that. The government's not interested in that," he said.

"So if you're asking to get more of the same, which is what I hear -- I'm hearing a call for more of the same at the national level, aggregating at the international level -- count me out."

From plan to action

In an interview after the presentation, Cappon says he wasn't shocked by any of the criticisms, saying many of them were just misunderstandings.

"Whenever you do a summary of a situation, there will be lots of nuances that are not brought up," he explained. He emphasizes the importance of assessment for data collection, but says it should never take precedence over learning in the classroom. Nor should government be left alone to make education decisions.

The Tyee contacted the federal Department of Human Resources, Skills and Development, but did not receive a call back by press time.

Cappon says the federal government was given an early copy of the report, and is scheduled to present to government bureaucrats soon. He isn't holding his breath for any public comment, however.

"Because as far as they're concerned they made the decision to cease the funding of CCL, so it doesn't exist," he says.

A call to the provincial Ministry of Education resulted in an email response lauding B.C.'s education plan: the introduction of all-day kindergarten, higher academic standards, personalized learning, flexibility and choice, and better teaching and learning.

Cappon acknowledges B.C.'s academic strengths, but says it's less likely now that B.C. students will remain in one province to get their education, and high standards need to apply across the board.

But despite the criticisms he received at UBC, Cappon says the majority of people he's spoken to thus far like the report, and he needs their support more than the federal government's.

"I think our recommendations will be considered and followed insofar as Canadians decide that this is really important in their lives: it means something to their families, to their communities, their regions and their province. But politicians are people from the community, so they will act if they are encouraged to act by their constituents," he said.

"That's the way democratic life works."

[Tags: Education, Politics]