Getting serious about international education

By Bob Rae

First published in Global Currents, Fall 2008. Download a .pdf version of the newsletter here.

Canada urgently needs a national strategy for research and international education. Our ability to compete on the world stage depends on our success in sending Canadian students to work and study abroad, attracting foreign students to come to Canada, and promoting Canadian universities' presence overseas. Yet we lack a coherent national framework of how to achieve these goals.

As I argued in my 2005 report on higher education in Ontario, studying abroad or in an internationally diverse campus at home is an intensely enriching experience. Students gain a better understanding of Canada's place in the world and forge networks with their peers from other countries. Universities and colleges reap the benefits of new ideas and ways of thinking, leading to new patents, collaborations and technological breakthroughs. Indeed, our entire country benefits from international education - the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) estimates that foreign students contribute over $5 billion a year to the Canadian economy.

Yet despite the clear value of international education, Canada lags behind most OECD countries in key metrics. Recent studies show that less than 1% of Canadian students participate in overseas exchanges, a level 8 times lower than the European average. Moreover, Canada receives fewer than 3% of the estimated 2.7 million international students that study abroad every year. That puts us in the same league as New Zealand, a country with only one sixth Canada's population. According to the AUCC, per student funding in Canada for higher education is $9,000 lower than in the United States, a striking figure considering our country once enjoyed a $2,000 advantage in per student funding in 1980.

To its credit, the Conservative government has taken some positive steps towards addressing this growing challenge. It has eased restrictions on allowing foreign students to work off campus, amended the Post Graduation Work Permit Program to make it easier for foreign students to find work in Canada, and renewed funding for Canada's research chairs and millennium scholarships.

These measures, however, fall well short of a national strategy. A large part of the hundreds of millions of dollars of "new‟ funding announced by the government this year is actually money that is being restored from cuts they made two years ago. Recycled money and piecemeal reforms are not what will move our country forward.

The Canadian government must instead set out a clear vision outlining our goals and priorities as a nation. The vision should give shape to a collaborative framework between the provinces and the federal government. Though higher education is a provincial responsibility, the federal government can and should be an active partner through granting agencies, loans programs and transfers payments. The federal government missed an important opportunity to create such a framework in 2006 when it snubbed a plan submitted by premiers Charest and McGuinty on behalf of the Council of Federations.

The federal government must also be a reliable partner to our universities and colleges. By setting clear targets and goals, we will be in a better position to provide higher education institutions with the legislative support and long- term funding they require to remain competitive on the international stage.

A first target should be increasing the number of Canadian students who study overseas. The recent collapse of Canada's Commonwealth scholarships program is a disgrace and has raised serious questions at home and abroad about our commitment to international education. I believe any student wishing to study abroad should have access to enough grants and loans to cover his or her tuition and living costs while overseas. We must push the private sector to become an active contributor to this effort given the tremendous benefit they gain from an internationally experienced workforce.

We must also do more to fund students coming to study in Canada. Recent changes allowing foreign students to work off campus are helpful, but more must be done to streamline the process and ensure a competitive turnaround time in getting qualified foreign students permanent residency status. Incentives and grants should also be offered to high performing foreign students to stay in Canada to continue their research and build their networks.

It is also important to look beyond the numbers game of students coming in and out of Canada. Countries like India and China are increasingly providing incentives for their students to get their education in-country. Spending on post-secondary education in China has nearly tripled in the last decade and India has plans to open close to a dozen new campuses for its prestigious Indian Institute of Management and Indian Institute of Technology over the next five years.

These developments drive home the importance of creating opportunities for Canadian universities to establish research partnerships, joint degrees, satellite campuses or to offer technical expertise. Already, individual universities and colleges across the country have made significant headway in this regard and should be commended for their efforts. Yet without a serious federal partner, our universities will face needless obstacles in capitalizing on their hard work.

Successfully leveraging our expertise in higher education requires careful thought at the national level. It is important to fully understand the higher education priorities being set in countries like India and China and ensure we put forward a strategy that responds to their goals while showcasing Canada's most successful institutions and re-search centres in these areas.

Sending Canadian students abroad, welcoming foreign students to our universities and expanding our overseas presence are deeply intertwined goals that cut across various levels of government. A coherent and truly national vision reflecting the needs and responsibilities of key stakeholders is long overdue.