Thinking about: Education

We bloggers are usually quite good at identifying the problems, myself included. That’s easy enough to do. I’ve long kvetched about the Liberal Party’s focus on the tactical and the scandal while ignoring the strategic, the policy, the vision thing. Over the next little while, in the lead-up to the much hyped Thinker’s Thingamajig, I’m going to try offering some suggestions on that front.

First up in this series, I’d like to mention education. Long-time readers will know education is an issue I’ve long been concerned about and have long been writing about. And I continue to believe education is a fundamentally core issue that is critical to the success and future health and prosperity of our country, and is of great importance to Canadians. It’s an issue area in which the Liberal Party must absolutely claim a visionary, forward-thinking leadership role.

Perhaps uniquely, education plays across so many other issue areas. Want a strong, competitive economy? You need an educated workforce. Want to fight child poverty? Education goes a long way to lifting families out of poverty. Improved health care? You need more trained doctors, nurses, technicians. Improved standard of living? Compete internationally? New jobs and industries? Going green? Education underpins it all.

And education is only becoming more important in the 21st century. We can’t compete with emerging economies on the price of our labour. We have to compete with our brains, and yet we’re falling behind the world. Companies such as Cisco Systems are opening facilities and moving jobs to place such as India not for labour cost, but for skilled workers. China and India and other emerging economic powerhouses are investing in their education systems, and it is paying results. Jobs will go where the brains are, and with the jobs go economic prosperity.

We need to make it easier for Canadians to attend post-secondary education, be it university, college or skilled trades. Not harder. And we should ensure that we no longer burden them with crippling, life-long debt loads in the process. We need to increase government investment in post-secondary education, and we need to begin to look at it not as a cost centre, but as an investment.

Because that’s what it is. A more educated Canadian will find a better job, earn a better salary, and pay higher taxes to the government. They may even create their own business, paying business taxes and creating jobs for other taxpaying Canadians. They’re also less likely to be a drain on government services. In short, our investment in the education of our citizens will pay great dividends. We get back our investment many times.

Let’s be bold. Why can’t we explore free undergrad or college tuition for every Canadian? Or a lifetime entitlement for XX hours of skill training for every Canadian? If not, we should at least consider it for certain targeted professions and skills that are highly in demand.

At the very least, we need to throw out a student loan system that is fundamentally flawed and build something that works. It's become a commercial money-making venture for banks. That's wrong. Far better would be interest-free loans or, better yet, do away with loans all together for a system of bursaries.

We need to work with the provinces, who have constitutional responsibility for education, to rethink the system and ensure that national standards are maintained and that any funding increases do filter down to the universities students and aren’t eaten up by the provinces. And colleges and trades training must absolutely be a critical part of the discussion.

It goes wider than just this though. Too many immigrants come to Canada with skills we need but aren’t able to get work in their fields. Foreign credential recognition has long been a swampy topic. The Conservative government recently made some progress on this topic. We need to build and expand on that.

And education also needs to begin, well, at the beginning, with early learning and childcare. Studies show children that set out on the right path early develop a life-long love of learning, and will go on to greater success and prosperity in their lives.

After many years, the previous Liberal government under Paul Martin, thanks to the hard work of Ken Dryden, had finally made a good start on this front, negotiating long-term agreements with many of the provinces. Unfortunately, that work has been abandoned by the current government in favour of a flawed tax-credit system. With the Liberal funding agreements now ending we’re seeing just how flawed: precious child care spaces are disappearing.

We need to pick up that squandered momentum and make early childhood learning and childcare a priority once again. But we can’t stop there. We need to acknowledge that what we had proposed earlier was incomplete. Flexibility, and options for those who wish to stay at home to care for their children, or have a family member do so, must be built into the system. Choice is crucial.

Finally, it’s all well and good to have high-minded discussion about the importance of education in broad strokes. We also need to bring it down to the ground and make it understandable and saleable. We’ve always been good at the idealism in the past, but the Conservatives have kicked our asses on the realism, on the distilling it into something people can relate to.

We need a package of proposals and initiatives that will not only make the systemic reforms we need, but will have an impact in the daily lives of Canadians: such as XX lifetime hours of free skill training, or free tuition, and so on. Make it relatable and understandable if it’s going to be successful.

Otherwise, it really will just be an academic gabfest, and we don’t need one of those.

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