Ontario’s new performance-based funding model for colleges and universities is a shakeup that could be revolutionary say some educational experts.
The Ontario government is putting more conditions on post-secondary funding, saying money for the province’s public colleges and universities will increasingly be tied to performance outcomes rather than enrollment which is what it has been mostly tied to in the past (only a little more than one per cent of funding has been tied to performance historically).
The Progressive Conservative government says negotiations for new agreements with 45 post-secondary institutions are geared to make the province a “national leader” in outcomes-based funding.
Performance will be measured according to various metrics of which some include:
-Graduate earnings
-Number and proportion of graduates in programs with experiential learning
-Skills and competencies
-Proportion of graduates employed full-time in a related or partially-related field
-Proportion of students in identified area of strength
-Graduation rate
Other metrics still seem more vague at this point but it is worth noting that each individual college and university will have its own “institution-specific economic impact metric.”
By 2025, up to 60 per cent of operating grant funding from the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities will be linked to performance measures according to reports.
Some educational experts say they support the plan in that it gives governments and taxpayers a sense that universities and colleges are spending money to a purpose.
On the other hand, The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) is raising concerns about the plan, calling it “a drastic move towards tying funding to performance outcomes.”
Bottom Line
It looks like post-secondary institutions could face losing a chunk of their $3 billion dollar share of funding if their performance does not measure up.
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