In my October column I looked at the main recommendation by New Brunswick’s Commission on Post-Secondary Education to merge university campuses in Saint John, Edmundston and Shippagan with community colleges to form polytechnics, thus signaling the end of UNB Saint John and the two northern campuses of the Université de Moncton.

The commission’s report, grandiosely titled “Advantage New Brunswick: A Province Reaches to Fulfill its Destiny” and released in September, ignited a storm of protest across the province, including two huge demonstrations in Saint John and a march to the provincial legislature in Fredericton. In Edmundston, more than 1,000 protesters descended on the Liberal Party’s biennial convention last month to support the region’s post-secondary education system.

These demonstrations, the likes of which New Brunswick hadn’t seen in years, in addition to the many critical voices heard in the local and provincial media, seem to have finally caught the government’s ear.

Post-secondary Education Minister Ed Doherty has responded by promising that northern New Brunswick and Saint John will always have a university presence (whatever that means) and the province has since put together a working group of the four university presidents and four of the 11 community college principals to develop concrete scenarios around this issue (whatever that means, too!).

Although this is an interesting development, in the sense the report’s recommendations may not be implemented literally (the word “polytechnics” seems to have disappeared from the scene lately), there are problems still with this approach.

First, students and academic staff are not represented and second, there seems to be no mention of any duty to consult. The “group of eight” could end up making deals with government officials behind closed doors and then we could all be presented with a fait accompli.

True, the presidents of the two universities most affected by the report — UNB and Moncton — have been vocal critics. Moncton’s president Yvon Fontaine was quoted as saying the commission had “missed the point” in improving the province’s post-secondary education system.

There are other issues with the report as well. Governance is one. The report asserts academic senates are slow, ineffective and inefficient and proposed to “reduce and streamline their composition and operation” by recommending they report to the board through the university president.

This sounds like an emasculating process to me . . . Definitely a big step back from our current bicameral collegial governance model and a giant one towards a corporate managerial model!

Then there is the student aid plan, which some student federations have enthusiastically embraced. The report proposes a $7,000 debt limit per year, covered by a government loan, and suggests “any need above that would automatically become a grant or a bursary.” If the report figures are correct in stating that the average student loan debt after four years is currently $32,000, then the new cap would only reduce the debt load to $28,000.

First, students should realize that financial need will be defined very narrowly and second, if this system for financial aid is implemented, students who complete a bachelor’s degree program would still be saddled with an average debt of $28,000. We’re talking about a lot of debt here!

These proposals don’t represent a more effective means of making post-secondary education accessible to all students, especially since the report advocates deregulating tuition fees and eliminating existing grant and tax relief programs for students.

There are many other questionable recommendations in the commission’s report, including a much broader credit transfer program between courses taught at the community colleges and those taught at the universities. It is noteworthy that, unlike colleges in most other provinces, New Brunswick’s community colleges have narrow, trades-oriented programs.

The report suggests first-year and perhaps even second-year university courses should be completed in a community college. But, as Moncton’s president remarked, “I don’t think we need more capacity for entering students into universities. With shrinking demographics, New Brunswick’s existing university campuses should be responsible for delivering university-level education.”

If the commission’s report was a student term paper, it would get a failing grade. There is no analysis of what the problems are and no data to back up the proposals.

UNB Saint John vice-president emeritus Thomas Condon has called the report “seriously flawed” and “confused and confusing,” with a vision that “appears to be vague, blurry, highly theoretical and — in the absence of a business plan and a timetable and mechanism of transition — reckless.”

The whole thrust seems to stem from the initial discussion paper the commission released last year, claiming there was a serious imbalance between university enrolment — deemed too high — and college enrolment — deemed too low.

In 2004-2005, the province’s four universities had 20,300 full-time students, whereas in 2005-2006, the 11 community colleges had 5,400 full-time students. Excuse me, why was the question not asked about why this was so?

By all accounts there seems to be a shortage of skilled tradespeople, so why is it that young people aren’t flocking to community colleges? If the problem is at that level, why keep claiming the post-secondary education system overall is at fault?

Of course, better communication and cooperation between colleges and universities should be encouraged and supported. Actually, a lot is already happening. But why not try to fix the problem where the problem is? Are the community college programs and courses as relevant and up-to-date as they could be? Are the apprenticeship programs working well? Is there an image problem? Despite generally decent salaries, maybe young people from working-class families just don’t want to end up in jobs their parents held.

Additionally, why not make the colleges autonomous, like the universities? In New Brunswick, community colleges are a branch of the provincial government and teachers by and large are civil servants.

The issues raised are complex and they deserved a much more in-depth analysis than the report provided. Modern society is complicated and changing and requires a much higher level of schooling, whether it be in vocational centres or universities. The whole system needs to be much better funded and student accessibility should be a top priority, since today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders.

Somehow, these basic principles were overlooked in the 60 glossy pages of a final report from a commission reportedly costing $13 million of taxpayers’ money. Here’s hoping the “group of eight” gets it right, but let’s keep close track of this story.

Next month, back to CAUT on the international scene. Stay tuned!