On April 29 the provincial government unveiled its plan to re-engineer education and training in the province of British Columbia.
It is an attempt to socially engineer the educational system to produce the workers that the economy needs or the government thinks that the economy will need for the next ten years.
It is a plan that stresses up front that the LNG sector, alone, has the potential for nearly $175 billion in industry investment over the next decade. This is anticipated to support up to 100,000 jobs of which 23,800 will be permanent direct or indirect jobs for operations.
Putting aside the very notion of permanent when it comes to the job market, this sort of demand might sound good. Certainly it makes for a great press release.
But in an economy that the government is forecasting to require 1,000,000 workers in the same time period, 23,800 permanent jobs is nothing to write home about.
Furthermore, the government is estimating that only 530,000 young people will enter the job market over the next ten years. In other words, we will need to import 470,000 skilled labourers to meet demand.
So, why are we re-engineering the education system in the province? Not just at the university or college level but all the way down to kindergarten.
If we have more jobs than applicants, then it is a seller's market and their skill sets can be as varied as necessary to meet demand. Who knows what that demand will be?
I would argue that the education system that we have right now - from kindergarten to Ph.D. - does an excellent job of providing the right sort of mix of people for the province. After all, it is driven by market forces and one of the central tenets of right wing economics is that the market is always right.
But Advanced Education Minister Amrit Virk sees the labour market in a slightly different way. He was recently interviewed on the CBC by Steven Quinn. The interview is over seven minutes in length and explored a number of areas associated with government's plan.
It got interesting, for me, when Mr. Quinn asked about the not-so-in-high-demand professions - historians, writers, choreographers, etcetera.
Minister Virk's response: "Well, I will tell you that this is about creating opportunities ... we are going to target 25 per cent of the grants we provide universities to high demand occupations and the remainder of that programming, the universities, depending upon the region, the type of university, will do the analysis of what's in demand, what are students looking for, and what kind of opportunities there are in the workforce and it is based on that analysis that they will decide to continue or not continue programs."
Interesting response as the Minister completely neglected to comment on the programming at the Colleges throughout British Columbia. It could be that they are already only delivering programming targeted at high demand professions. Or it could be that he doesn't consider them relevant.
In any case, it really does beg the question of what sort of society do we want - one where universities are simply about trying to fill labour market demands? Is that the point?
Mr. Quinn asked what the impact would be on students that want to be historians or choreographers. Can they just expect to pay more of their load?
Minister Virk's response: "I think that the public wants us to use our funding in the wisest and most economical way so when you have funding coming... when the public is paying... some 66 per cent of the student's tuition comes from public funds. They expect that to be used in programs [that are] going to take a person from being a learner to an earner. How novel a concept that we are actually trying to graduate taxpayers."
Mr. Quinn asked if that is what university is about - graduating taxpayers?
Minister Virk's response: "We are trying to graduate individuals that are going to contribute to British Columbia. At the same time I have a great deal of respect and acknowledge the fact that we are doing incredible research at our university. That it's cutting edge. It's cutting edge world-level research.
"So we have to have an equilibrium and a balance. A balance between insuring that we continue to do the traditional kind of work that we are doing at universities - the research that better's our life, our health, our ability to be more innovative, our ability to have better technology - but at the same time, the balance that we are graduating individuals that our economy requires."
I couldn't agree more. But I would also argue that is exactly what the universities are doing right now - graduating the students that we need for an uncertain economic future.
After all, an education will last a lifetime. It doesn't need to be re-engineered.
