Perform better, says Marois

ERIC SMITH | With the release last week of a consultation document on the future of Quebec universities, Education Minister Pauline Marois presented the provincial university community with several proposals that lay the groundwork for a new policy due this fall.

Although the minister stressed that the document, L'université devant l'avenir: Perspectives pour une politique gouvernementale à l'égard des universités québécoises, is a starting point for a debate on the role of universities in Quebec society, it outlines a number of the government's own priorities for higher education.

Among those priorities are accessibility, a renewed emphasis on undergraduate teaching, increases in research partnerships with government and industry, closer ties between the various institutions and with CEGEPs, and greater accountability on the part of universities to society at large.

Quebec universities, said Marois, "need to perform even better than they do now."

But she warned that universities should not expect new money to take on her challenge. "I think it is possible to do this with the funds we have now. I would like to have more resources but I don't think I can now."

In fact, the only mention the 72-page document makes about funding is a reference to some of the recommendations by a work group on university financing. The work group, which published a report in April, had a mandate only to consider the way funds are distributed across the network, not the size of the government's contribution. The minister did, however, affirm the principle of institutional autonomy in how government funds are spent in each university.

On the question of accessibility, the minister said Quebec still lags behind other provinces in terms of the percentage of students who go on to university. In 1992, 27.8% of 22-year-olds could expect to earn a bachelor's degree. By 2010, Marois wants this percentage to reach 30, and is asking the university community for strategies to achieve this goal.

The minister asked universities to place greater emphasis on teaching and undergraduate programs. The report encourages universities to consider making changes to bachelor's curricula to provide less specialization and a broader general education. According to Marois, top researchers should be expected to teach at the undergraduate level. The report asks how "professors can act as intellectual guides in their teaching activities."

And the report adds that academics who focus more on teaching than on research and publication should not be penalized in their careers.

Though the report argues that universities "must continue to maintain a solid base of basic research," it suggests universities need to be more open to partnerships with industry and government, and to "actively seek them."

The report also calls for the "collective consolidation of services across the university system." Greater dialogue is necessary between institutions to assure "the best complementarity" of programs, to establish a protocol for mutual recognition of course credits, and to increase administrative collaboration. The minister applauded CREPUQ's creation of a university commission on programs and said she was looking forward to its findings.

The report asks whether there needs to be a formal evaluation mechanism of the university system which would be outside both the ministry and the universities.

Finally, the report suggests that there is a public demand for greater accountability from universities. There need to be more benchmarks by which to evaluate the performance of universities, and, according to the report, there needs to be better communication from universities to the public at large.

Though it will be some time before McGill can make a full response, Principal Bernard Shapiro says he welcomes the document "as a serious invitation to engage in a constructive dialogue on the future of Quebec universities and their place in Quebec society.

"Nonetheless, like other university leaders, I admit to being profoundly disappointed that the issue of funding is not given higher priority in the government's paper. Without additional revenue, it is difficult to imagine how Quebec universities can fulfil the promise they hold for a better future."

Vice-Principal (Academic) Bill Chan says McGill "is organizing a consultation process within the University through both the Senate and the Board and with the community at large" to formulate an institutional response to the questions and proposals in the report. The University is also hosting a web forum for discussion of the report at ww2.mcgill.ca/consult/consultation.html. That page is linked to the Ministry of Education's web site, where the full report and other relevant documents are available. The ministry promises to have an English version of the report available online on March 6.