News & Views item - December 2005

 

 

Canada's Ontario Province has C$6.2 Billion Invested in its "Reaching Higher" Plan Over the Next Five Years to Boost Education. (December 1, 2005)
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty became Premier of the Canadian province of Ontario in October 2003. The son of the politician and professor Dalton McGuinty Sr, Mr McGuinty earned a science degree from McMaster University and a law degree from the University of Ottawa.

 

   McGuinty (l) and Bentley at York University
   Credit: Excalibur online

This past October the premier announced that one of his aims was to maintain Ontario's economic advantage by investing in education and yesterday he earmarked C$211million for a "Quality Improvement Fund" to be allocated to improve the quality and accountability of post-secondary education for Ontario students.

 

"[The students] are the most valuable asset we have for strengthening Ontario's economic advantage. In today's global economy, jobs and investment go to places with the best-educated, most highly skilled workforce," he told the students at York University. "[And] what I'm most proud of about this government is that we've been able to make an investment in future prosperity, notwithstanding that we have a deficit."

 

York will receive just under $10 million of the new funding which the university says will allow it to hire 70 additional full-time professors.

 

Ontario's Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, Chris Bentley, however, says "One thing that you learn about government is that it is easy to put money on the bill . . . the big thing is how do you ensure that [you are] getting your value for your dollars; we've learned... we need to apply quality standards to our universities."

 

In return for new investment, Mr Bentley said there would have to be tangible improvements in accountability. "Nobody gets their money until they sign on [to the the accountability agreement."