A few months ago, the Provincial Government unveiled a Post Secondary Education (PSE) Commission Report that recommended the introduction of Polytechnics (university/community college hybrids) and the merger of community colleges with universities to create these learning institutions.

The general public and students who would be impacted by these changes panicked, particularly those at the University of New Brunswick’s Saint John Campus (UNBSJ) and others in the north who were students at the Université de Moncton’s campuses in Edmundston and Shippigan.

The existing structure of New Brunswick’s PSE system includes:
(i) the four public universities: Mount Allison; the Université de Moncton; the University of New Brunswick and St. Thomas University
(ii) the government-run New Brunswick Community College system
(iii) private universities and adult learning institutions and
(iv) on the job apprenticeship and other learning programs.

In response to public and student outcries, with respect to the Polytechnics and proposed consolidations in Northern and Francophone New Brunswick, the Government sought further guidance from a PSE “Working Group” (consisting of the university presidents, community college presidents and others in the field of education). Their Report and recommendations were released this past week.

Here’s what they said: the community college component of the PSE system should be autonomous (i.e. freed from government); apprenticeship training should be enhanced and integrated within the PSE system; the principle of linguistic duality should be more collaborative in academic programming; the creation of regionally and community-based partnerships among universities should be pursued and community-colleges and the private sector should accelerate development of applied learning programs.

The Working Group appears to have been overly influenced by the perception of an under-developed New Brunswick Community College system. They have concluded that a healthy, vibrant, modern, nimble and responsive community college system is vital to New Brunswick’s economic and community-development future and that the system must provide training and education programs that respond to current or projected labor-market needs, if the Province is to move towards prosperity and self-sufficiency.

I have no problem with that conclusion but the Report fails (in my brief read) to defend the notion of university education as the training ground for those who will become critical thinkers, analysts and learners – not everyone is a labor-force worker. New Brunswick’s Post Secondary Education System should be focused on excellence, creativity and innovation. Common denomination will not get us to that destination.

A PSE output that focuses too heavily on employer needs without reference to the creative advancement of our society will fail. A progressive and self-sufficient society needs the creativity that comes from the unfettered output of a liberal arts education and the free-thinking graduates of a school of excellence.

The PSE Working Group seems to have concluded that the community college system should be the entry-point to applied post-secondary education as well as to an advanced and/or liberal education. It promotes co-location considerations (Université de Moncton’s Edmundston campus, the community college in Edmundston, the University of New Brunswick’s Saint John campus and the community college in Saint John). It’s difficult for this writer to see how this fundamentally differs from the original Post Secondary Education Commission’s “polytechnic” model.

The Working Group would not replace universities and community colleges. They would complement them and build on their existing strengths. They would make use of existing infrastructure, including; hospitals and private sector environments.

Their recommendations call for an Anglophone institute to be established in Saint John, in partnership with the Saint John and St. Andrews campuses of the New Brunswick Community College and the Saint John Campus of the University of New Brunswick. A francophone institute in northern New Brunswick would partner with the Université de Moncton and the Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick.

The institutes would be incorporated entities owned jointly by the respective college and university and governed by an independent Board of Governors, representing the college, university and local community.

The Government of New Brunswick makes clear that it supports the continued role of the University of New Brunswick’s Saint John campus and the Université de Moncton’s campuses in Edmundston and Shippagan. The Working Group’s plan is to offer first and second-year university courses in community colleges where there is no university in the neighborhood.

The net recommendation of the Working Group’s Report and the Government’s response to the Commission on Post Secondary Commission’s recommendations seems to be that New Brunswick’s post-secondary students should be given the opportunity to learn in their home communities, no consideration for critical mass, economics or excellence.

As so often happens with committee consensus, we now have a Commission Report and a Government response that is neutered by compromise, probably underfunded and lacking in change-driven vision. Too bad! We need more.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com