For many years now, there’s been an on-going discussion about whether the quality of education in Ontario is actually improving or not. And there’s every indication that education, and access to post-secondary education in particular, will be a hot button issue in the upcoming provincial election.

According to a poll conducted this month by a group of student associations, education is a priority for residents of this province. In fact, nine in ten Ontarians believe post-secondary education is important to the economic prosperity of the province.

If reelected, Ontario’s self-proclaimed “Education Premier”, Dalton McGuinty says he plans to invest further in education with the aim of increasing the number of Ontarians with a post secondary education from 64 per cent to 70 percent.

Going by the numbers, considerable gains have been made by Ontario’s educational system in the last eight years. Test scores are up, as are high-school graduation rates. In 2003 when the Liberals came to power, 54 per cent of students met the Ontario standard of a B average or better. Today that number is 68 per cent. Similarly, the numbers of students graduating from high school has risen from 68 per cent to 81 per cent, the highest in history.

Central to the Liberal plan is the idea that “a strong start in school makes a strong finish” and a multi-billion-dollar programme to ensure full-day kindergartens in every elementary school is now in the second year of a five-year implementation plan. The goal is to have at least 75 per cent of students meet the provincial standard, and 85 per cent graduate from high school.

Education is not cheap, especially not in Ontario where universities charge the highest fees in the country. To nudge forward the number of students joining university from poorer backgrounds (a figure that has dropped dramatically in recent years as a result of rising tuition costs), the Liberals are promising a 30-per cent tuition rebate for middle-income families while NDP says it would freeze tuition and eliminate the provincial portion of the interest, saving students $60 a year on a $25,000 debt load.

All in all, things appear to be looking up. But higher graduation rates and university enrollment figures don’t answer the question of whether students are actually gaining a useful education.

The maturity levels of high school graduates are lower than they used to be and yet there is a lot of pressure on these youth to go directly into university when they may in fact not be ready, or might not want to.

Lazy students?

In their recently-published book, “Campus Confidential: 100 Startling Things You Don’t Know About Canadian Universities” Ken Coates, the Arts Dean at the University of Waterloo and Bill Morrison, a history professor at University of Northern B.C. say there are a lot of students at university who don't belong there and shouldn’t be there.

In an interview on CBC Radio, Prof. Coates says that the high school system is getting easier and easier allowing students to achieve high marks without putting much effort into their work. The number of high school graduates receiving grades above 80 per cent is soaring. But once these students get to university, they go down to a 60 percentile and become frustrated because the expectation is there that they deserve better. They often expect deadlines to be altered, want their explanations accepted without confirmation and try to insist that course requirements fit their availability to do work.

Although they blame the students for being the most “coddled and spoiled” generation ever and for having a “deep sense of entitlement", the professors acknowledge that the students’ attitudes aren’t the only factors holding them back.

The maturity levels of high school graduates are lower than they used to be and yet there is a lot of pressure on these youth to go directly into university when they may in fact not be ready, or might not want to. Much of this pressure comes from parents who push their children to focus on studying purely for the end result – a well-paying job.

In a 2009 Ontario-wide study, more than 55 per cent of 2000 faculty and librarians surveyed said they believed students were less prepared for university than just three years previously. Those surveyed also found students were less mature, lacked critical thinking skills, expected "success without the requisite effort" and were unable to do research or learn independently.
Prof. Coates says in the end, many students go through university, wanting to walk out and get a job or are only focused on getting into law school and medical school, when in reality many students are ending up as counter clerks which is not what university degrees promised.

"Universities are a privileged environment where the faculty and the students are encouraged to think about the world the way it could be, the way it should be, the way we want it to be," Prof. Coates says. "Instead, we're trying to figure out how to get a job with the Royal Bank." ■