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The Calgary Situation We are sure that the members of the legislature are well aware of the issues that have been raised regarding the rapid growth in the City of Calgary. Much media attention has been devoted to the need for expansion in a variety of types of infrastructure including transportation, hospitals, and schools. Very little has been said about the intellectual infrastructure that Calgary will need through its post-secondary institutions. Perhaps this is because, unlike these other sectors which can speak with a single voice, Calgary’s post-secondary community is divided into 5 autonomous institutions and a multitude of "stakeholders." This is one of the reasons we are making this presentation – to speak with a single voice. We believe that the intellectual infrastructure provided by post-secondary institutions is an essential part of the foundation for Calgary’s growth. Virtually every aspect of our economic growth and diversification either directly or indi-rectly relates to the programs offered at post-secondary institutions. Whether it is construction, health care, education, technology industry, cultural and artistic endeavours, social services, the hospitality industry, communications, or any other aspect of our community, you will find the need for the skills and education provided through post-secondary institutions. Calgary has the highest educated population in the country, with 58.2% of Calgarians over 15 having post-secondary education and 16.3% of Calgarians over the age of 15 years holding a bachelors degree or higher (see chart 1). Despite this highly educated population, Calgary has the second lowest number of university students per capita in Canada (see chart 2). The low number of university students compared to size of city is shown in chart 3. Clearly this means that Calgary is not producing the university graduates needed to meet its demand. We are importing graduates from across the country to sustain the number of knowledge workers needed in our city. We are concerned that this means there is already an inadequate number of post-secondary spaces in Calgary. In this case it is instructive to compare the Calgary situation to that of Edmonton (see table 1). This is not to diminish the concerns of the Edmonton institutions which are important yet different. The Calgary metropolitan area has now surpassed the Edmonton area in total population. Despite this, the four Edmonton institutions have in total, 20% more students than the comparable Calgary institutions. So, to meet the current needs of the same proportion of the population as Edmonton institutions, Calgary’s colleges and university should grow by approximately 20%, or about 8200 students. There is certainly a demand for post-secondary opportunities in Calgary. Mount Royal College alone has turned away approximately 1500 qualified applicants in each of the past two years. A highly skilled and educated workforce is essential for the strong, diversified economy that Alberta is creating. One of the key attractions for recruiting head offices to Calgary has been the strong research facilities at the University of Calgary and the excellent advanced education opportunities for both workers and their children through Calgary’s colleges, technical institute and university. According to the Calgary Economic Development Authority, Calgary has the second largest number of head offices in Canada (see chart 4). Our post-secondary infrastructure must continue to grow to meet the needs of corporate Calgary.When we look to the next five years, Calgary’s post-secondary institutions must expand to meet the booming population growth. Alberta Advanced Education and Career Development has forecast a 31% growth in the 18 to 24 year old population in Calgary by 2005 (see chart 5). If Calgary’s post-secondary institutions merely keep up with the proportion of 18 to 24 year olds we currently serve, we will need to grow by that same 31%, or 13,000 students by the year 2005. This means that over half of the government’s announced 23,000 Access Fund places must be in the City of Calgary merely to keep up with population growth. But please note that even this misrepresents the situation since the Access Fund only deals with new and selective programs. This is wonderful, but most of these students will still want existing programs; there is little in the current post-secondary funding envelopes that will allow institutions to expand core programs to this extent. Calgary is thus facing two converging forces: existing needs and future growth. To serve the same proportion of the population as Edmonton, and to meet the needs for growth by 2005, Calgary alone would require 23,600 more student spaces. This is greater than the total number of positions the government intends to create Alberta-wide.Analyses have shown that economic conditions and post-secondary enrolment are inversely related. Attendance at post-secondary institutions tends to in-crease during downturns. Should Calgary’s economic growth slow, we are likely to see demand for advanced education increase sharply. This was one of the factors behind the accessibility crunch experienced in the early 80’s.Quality post-secondary programs take time to build – it takes time to recruit excellent faculty and staff, to build the physical infrastructure and the techno-logical and information resources needed. This is why there needs to be a long-term plan for growth. The Alberta government has faced this situation before when Calgary experienced rapid growth in the early and mid 1970s. At that time, the government took a long-term view and a leadership position and helped the University of Calgary grow from a fledging university into a world-class research and teaching institution. At the same time, Mount Royal College’s Lincoln Park campus was established to meet the community’s needs. Now, we are looking for that sort of leadership from the government once again.The growth in Calgary is beyond
anything that can be addressed in the normal increases or envelope funding provided
through the Department of Advanced Education and Career Development. We believe that a
special plan must be created, with corresponding funding, for the growth of post-secondary
institutions in Calgary. We believe that this must be seen for what it is – an
investment to support and sustain the growth of Calgary and its intellectual
infra-structure. Envelope Funding As you know, virtually all new money provided by the government to post-secondary institutions comes through funding envelopes. We believe that the creation of the envelope funding model has had some serious negative, albeit unintended, consequences. Now that the Department of Advanced Education has experimented with this system for a number of years, we believe it is time to learn from the experience and recognize it as problematic. Perhaps there are good features that could be retained, but we believe that a formula-based approach serves the post-secondary system, the government, and the people of Alberta the best. One of the primary reasons the Department of Advanced Education started the envelope funding system was the idea of accountability. We are not arguing against accountability. We are probably one of the most analyzed sectors of society and we believe this is appropriate. The post-secondary system has committees, which look over every aspect of our colleges and university – budget committees, hiring committees, annual assessment of academic staff, promotions, quality of programs, and so on, and so on. Students who pay up to 30% of the total costs of the institutions through tuition and fees want to be sure that their institutions are efficient and have quality programs. Faculty members want to be sure that there is no waste, because this has an impact on salaries, academic resources, and workload. There is some benefit to the government’s coming up with standardized reporting of "performance measures," but the application of this to funding has been unsuccessful. The primary determinant of performance envelope funding is enrolment, which has more to do with the relative economic conditions of the community than it does the quality of the programs. Measures of quality are non-existent, yet that is what advanced education is truly about. Moreover, it is difficult to measure quality using quantitative methodology. We are all unique institutions with individual mandates and the idea of the performance envelope diminishes our uniqueness. The performance envelope is the primary way that an institution can receive an increase in its base operating grant. It does not deal adequately with inflationary pressures, but expects ever-increasing enrolment. This forces the institutions to spread their existing programs ever thinner to address government required growth without corresponding increases in funding.All of the other envelope funds are even more problematic, as they tend to give "strings attached" funding. And usually the funds are inadequate for the costs of the new program that we have to create to receive this funding. This means that we have to divert dollars and other resources from existing programs to receive this funding. It has to be remembered that these programs are being sustained with 21% less funding than was the case 6 years ago. The small operating grant increases since that time have easily been eaten up by inflationary pressures. The "strings attached" funding thus creates havoc with the budgetary processes as we cannibalize the core to support these new projects. Plus, it makes a mockery of institutional autonomy as Boards of Governors are unable to direct resources to the institutions’ priorities rather than government-imposed priorities. When the government gives an institution partial funding for a new program, the result is often a cut to current program offerings.Another example of this has been "matching grant" funding where, once again, the institutions have to come up with money from existing programs to receive additional funding from government. These "50 cent dollars" tend to cause more harm than help to the institutions.Ideologically, micro-management through the envelope funding seems to be at odds with the market-based approach the government espouses. Rather than letting local conditions prevail, the government has created an artificial bureaucratic maze for funding the post-secondary system that creates inefficiency rather than reducing it.Advanced Education reviewed performance-based funding and key performance indicators last year. Although the results have not yet been released, we believe that many of our concerns are shared by other stakeholders. It is our belief that performance-based funding is not meeting its mandate of enhancing institutional performance. Instead, it is eroding true excellence and efficiency in this province. |
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