Government & Policy
A Learning Alberta Final Report of the Steering Committee
The government recently released the A Learning Alberta Final Report of the Steering Committee. The release of the report marks the conclusion of broad government consultations with system stakeholders and limited consultations with the public on building a new policy framework for post-secondary education in Alberta. Consultations have been underway since January 2005; the 'A Learning Alberta' process formally began in June 2005.
The government's media release on the report emphasizes that it is a road map to guide the system through the next twenty years. Consequently, the report is not a document meant to produce a detailed policy framework, a reality that is evident by its abundance of vague, general language on many of the key policy areas.
The report suffers from a few weaknesses. The most serious of which is a commitment found in the report "to accomplish [the report's] recommendations by 2025." This timeline is a surprise to most – if not all – system stakeholders who, like ACIFA, were expecting more immediate action to be undertaken by the government.
The report calls for the formation of a stakeholder working group to continue posing policy ideas and directions on system roles and responsibilities. The Steering Committee is also calling for consultations on the forthcoming tuition policy and students' finance reforms. These consultations are underway. The government has recently accepted the Steering Committee’s recommendation that tuition fees be set to 2004-05 levels and that future tuition increases be linked to the Alberta Consumer Price Index. As part of the new tuition policy, tuition revenues will be uncoupled from institutional operating expenses. This shift in policy, in particular, represents a lobbying success for ACIFA.
The report contains other policy recommendation highlights, some of which ACIFA advocated. They include: increasing the participation of Aboriginal, Métis, and Inuit people in post-secondary education; ensuring government funding meets inflationary costs of the institutions; retaining outstanding faculty; and increasing research capacity of universities, colleges, and technical institutes.
Click here to view Final Report