News & Views item - May 2006

 

 

Canada's Province of Ontario Sets Up Review to Determine if its Universities are Providing Quality, Accessible and Accountable Education. (May 17, 2006)

    Frank Iacobucci, was an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of Canada from 1991 to 2004. He has now been named to lead a review exploring whether universities are providing quality, accessible and accountable education. He has been appointed chair of the Higher Education Quality Council, an independent agency set up by Ontario’s minister of training, colleges and universities, Chris Bentley, "to assist in improving all aspects of post-secondary education."

 

Ontario has 20 universities and colleges, and in Canada the provinces have far greater responsibility for their universities and colleges than is the case in Australia where virtually all public funding is determined by the federal government.

 

Bentley told the Toronto Star that the former justice, will be free to comment as he sees fit on matters ranging from tuition to faculty hiring. He noted that the agency was created to “provide independent, well-researched, well-founded information, advice, suggestions or comment.”

Dr Iacobucci said, “To be quite candid – and without being dramatic – I wouldn’t have been interested in a position that was not having an independence associated with it. Having said that, there are a lot of opportunities to be collaborative – to work with the colleges and universities because we don’t want to reinvent wheels that have been around for some time. And there’s work that we can build on together.”

Frank Iacobucci taught law at the University of Toronto from 1967 to 1985 and is a former dean of the Faculty of Law. He served as interim president of the university in 2004-2005.