"After
the first two years of this six-year initiative, audited
results show that 4,004 of the 25,000 new seats have been
filled with students. The ministry's plan was to have 7,417
new seats filled by this time, so the initiative is off
to a slower than planned start."
Key Findings and Recommendations, "Government's Post
Secondary Expansion - 25,000 Seats by 2010", Acting
Auditor General Arn van Iersel, December 2006
"Delivery
of student FTEs is a key measure of progress. In our view,
Ministry and institution service plans and service plan
reports present information in a clear and transparent fashion,
augmented by additional planning and reporting information
on institutional websites. In that regard, we do not
agree that the baseline for measuring achievement of the
25,000 spaces should be the actual number of FTEs delivered
in 2003/04. We believe this would be misleading, as
the Ministry funded only the number of FTEs reflected in
institutions' targets. The accountability model is based
on holding institutions accountable for delivering Ministry
funded FTEs; therefore the Plan is built on 2003/04 funded
FTEs. The presentation in the Ministry Service Plan Report
does allow readers to assess progress against 2003/04 actual
FTEs and against the overall system target"
(emphasis added)
Ministry of Advanced Education response to the Auditor General,
December 2006
The
Acting Auditor General was willing to cut the government
some slack. Although he found that it had fallen behind
in the first two years of a six year commitment, he expressed
confidence that the majority of the 25,000 seats would be
occupied by 2010 as long as the risk management practices
of the ministry and the institutions are strengthened, and
the approach used to fund post secondary education institutions
is reviewed. Before looking at what that means, skip to
the end of the report where the Ministry's response directly
challenged the Auditor by simply saying that the measure
of the number of seats is a moving target. That's the same
approach the government took when critics discovered that
it was breaking its promise to build 5,000 long term care
beds; it simply changed the date for delivering and then
changed the definition of long term care to include assisted
living. Now we have the Ministry of Advanced Education saying
that the increase in the number of seats really can't be
measured because "we do not agree that the baseline
for measuring achievement of the 25,000 spaces should be
the actual number of FTE's delivered in 2003/04" (when
the promise was made). The Ministry would prefer to count
seats that are funded rather than seats that are filled,
but the Auditor also wrote that the Ministry's funding of
seats is not transparent since it combines funding inflation
for existing seats with funding for new seats.
When
the Auditor spoke about strengthening risk management, he
was referring to understanding what happens to enrolment
when tuition is increased and student grants are cut. The
report says: "Post secondary education enrolments are
sensitive to several factors: tuition and fee increases,
revised student aid provisions, changes in debt levels,
fluctuations in the labour market and shifts in demographics.
British Columbia has experienced changes in all of these
areas in recent years." It goes on to say: "The
impacts of these interacting factors help explain the softening
in student enrolment. We expected the ministry and institutions
to be well aware of these influences and to have been developing
strategies to offset any negative impacts. We found, however,
that softening enrolment caught many institutions and the
ministry by surprise." Most people on the street could
tell you that if tuition fees doubled, enrolment would drop.
Why was that rocket science for the Campbell government?
Post-secondary
institutions are funded by means of a "modified block
funding formula" of $7,200 per full time equivalent
seat. The Auditor wrote: "We also found that current
funding decisions are not based on a good understanding
of the actual costs to deliver a student seat at any particular
institution." That is why he recommended that: "the
ministry establish a process to determine, and periodically
review, the actual cost of delivering programs by institution,
and then use this information to better inform its block
funding decisions."
Since
the Auditor found that the Ministry doesn't know the cost
of delivering programs, and it doesn't understand the consequences
of raising tuition fees, it is fair to say that the Auditor's
opinion that the goal of 25,000 addition seats can be reached,
if risk management and funding improve, might be misplaced
optimism.
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