In Ontario, Its Back to School...and Back to COVID

As the September 2020 edition of Labour Day unfolds, the long summer of 2020 which for many students began in March, comes to an end in Ontario.  It is back to school at the elementary, secondary and post-secondary level and the rush to cram in as many outdoor social opportunities as possible during the good weather also comes to an end.  Like in many other parts of the world, the last few weeks have seen a relaxing of individual behaviour as also noted by pundits such as Andre Picard and the inevitable result has been a creeping up of the daily count of new cases.  The accompanying figure puts the start of the reversal of the downward trend at day 200 which coincides with about mid-August. 

While it appears the uptick in Ontario is being driven by GTA cases, as Picard himself notes, it is difficult to know exactly where or how people are being infected given the obsession of public health authorities in Canada with secrecy.  Sometimes, it would be nice to know when a case is reported in your community if it was due to international travel, inter-provincial travel, connected to a workplace or social event in an effort to personally gauge the threat level but such is not the case.  Of course, it is also difficult to know whether governments and public health agencies in Canada are being secretive or they simply do not have the capability to finely analyze and present data.  The latter possibility is even more disconcerting.

 

Back to school in Ontario will be interesting to watch unfold.  There apparently is a shortage of teachers given the anecdotal stories of retired teachers being phoned up and asked if they would like to come back this fall.  There is also a growing  shortage of school bus drivers.  And parents appear to be surprised that classes are as large as they are given that as much as one third of children will be doing their lessons online.  Of course, it is amazing how little people in general understand about resource allocation and basic economics.  Even online teaching requires teaching resources and they need to come from somewhere and given the anecdotally reported spate of sudden retirements it is no surprise that in-person classes are larger than expected.  Indeed, many JK and SK classes in particular are as large as previous years – that is to say 25 to 30 students.  It would be interesting to have more information and data about class sizes and their distribution, but provincial education ministries and school boards are as secretive as public health authorities.  If anything, the pandemic seems to have accelerated the tendency to less and less accountability on the part of government authorities when it comes to publicly available and accessible data and information. 

At the university level, the early cries of an enrollment collapse in the wake of COVID appear to have evaporated.  Overall enrollment in Ontario at the university level is holding its own and the numbers are good at both the domestic and international student level.  As of the August 2020 update, it would appear that  undergraduate confirmations are up at 107,001 from last year’s 104,635 – that is an increase of 2.2 percent and hardly the apocalyptic collapse many university administrations were articulating.  At my own university, as of this morning the total enrollment statistics showed the total enrollment down by several hundred but the system traditionally lags in presenting information which I think means that enrollment is pretty much on target.  My own first-year class is up 60 percent from last year while my upper year classes are either at the same level of enrollment or actually higher. 

It would appear that online education has actually had the effect of expanding choices for students because in person class schedules – especially at small universities with few sections - often meant there were scheduling conflicts.  I do recall in the past conversations with senior administrators chastising economics for its low undergraduate enrollment and never seeming to acknowledge the point that part of the problem was the class schedule itself given small departments and fewer sections of anything.  At Lakehead, more students seem to be opting for economics because they can actually fit it into their schedules this year. I suppose that is one proverbial silver lining to the COVID cloud.  The other is that universities – like other employers - have downloaded many of their costs onto people working at home and are saving a lot of money on their utilities and operating costs while keeping their tuition fee structure and other funding fully in place.  And unlike private employers, we are apparently not being provided with T2200  to help in the costs of any upgrading internet and computers at home to deal with larger classes.

So, it is September and once again the drama begins.  Another new school year but this time starting under conditions of a global pandemic.  Stay tuned.

Should Lakehead University Go Private?

Universities in Ontario are in a transition period as the provincial government brings in a new performance based funding formula that ties a substantial portion of the government grant revenue to a set of ten indicators. The new Strategic Mandate Agreement – known as SMA3 -  includes performance indicators such as “Research Funding”, “Graduation Rates” and oddly enough “Graduate Employment Earnings”.  How a university is expected to acquire information on the latter is a bit of a puzzle to me.  

While the previous formula also had a set of performance based indicators, they were more numerous.  It remains that a reduction in the number of indicators while increasing the proportion of revenue tied to those indicators makes the prospects of future short-term revenue volatility a greater possibility.  The public may be willing to accept a 5 or 10 or 20 percent revenue fluctuation in its local university and the subsequent disruption to programs and enrollment, that it would not tolerate if a similar model were applied to say hospitals or physician services or the provincial drug plan.  In these latter examples, people could die in the wake of disruption from sudden funding changes, whereas in the case of universities it would be unlikely.

Lakehead will of course also be impacted by these changes to the funding formula and one wonders if in the long-run, Lakehead – not to mention other universities – should give serious consideration to ending their dependence on provincial government funding entirely and go completely private.  The immediate reaction to this is to cringe given that provincial grants in Ontario still account for anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of university revenues and their elimination would probably necessitate as much as a doubling of tuition fees.  Lakehead University is for example closer to 50 percent for its revenue share from grants, while University of Toronto is closer to 30 percent.

However, freeing oneself from the clutches of the provincial government might come with some benefits.  Provincial governments in general have been encroaching on university autonomy for the last 50 years.  In Ontario, if one goes back to the 1960s and 1970s, provincial grant revenues for some universities accounted for well over 50 percent of their revenue.  Even more interesting is that despite accounting for the lion’s share of their funding, the provincial government generally left them alone to run their own affairs.  Over time, as the provincial government has reduced its relative contribution, it has also gradually become more intrusive by setting performance targets, establishing lengthy bureaucratic quality assurance reviews and tying more and more funding to short term goals linked to provincial economic development and employment visions. 

At the same time as grant funding has been reduced, the provincial government has also regulated and circumscribed the ability of universities to raise tuition because of the political fall-out.  So, universities in Ontario – like many in the country – have come to have less autonomy from the provincial government while at the same time having their funding growth restricted.  The government is calling more and more shots while providing less and less funding value.  For its 30 to 50 percent funding share, it basically wants universities to operate as arms of the provincial training, education and economic development ministries.  Moreover, its mandated goals end up affecting 100 percent of university operations and performance while only providing at best half the general grant revenue.

It is unlikely that any Ontario university would want to push the envelope and drastically change its funding.  It would require a degree of innovation and risk taking that universities as currently structured and configured in their operations would be quite averse to.  Indeed, the lack of experience in operating as a private and more profit oriented institution is a significant obstacle. Still, one wonders how much more autonomy universities in Ontario are willing to cede to the provincial government.  Are there any rams among the sheep?