June 30, 2020 - No. 45

Stepped Up Neo-Liberal
Assaults on Education

Stepped Up Neo-Liberal Assaults on Education

• Alberta Minister of Education Extends Government Dictate Over Local School Boards - Kevan Hunter
Dismantling Alberta's Post-Secondary Education System With Help from McKinsey & Company - Dougal MacDonald
Performance-Based Indicators: Another Zombie Idea - George Allen
Challenges in Ontario's Post-Secondary Education - Steve Rutchinski
Situation in Higher Education in Ontario - Interview, Colleen Burke


Stepped Up Neo-Liberal Assaults on Education

Alberta Minister of Education Extends Government Dictate Over Local School Boards

Following a review by multinational business advisory firm Grant Thornton LLP, Alberta's Minister of Education Adriana LaGrange issued a Ministerial Order regarding the operations of the Calgary Board of Education (CBE), on May 21. The order gives 19 conditions the Board must meet by November 30, or the Minister will dissolve the elected school board and appoint trustees who will obediently submit to the government's dictate.

The review was ordered by the Minister of Education in November 2019 to punish the CBE for speaking out publicly about the consequences of the government's cuts to education funding. While the CBE ultimately was permitted to dip into their infrastructure and maintenance funds to keep staff this year, the board had expected to cut 300 teaching positions in the middle of the school year based on the budget released by the Alberta government.

In targeting the Calgary Board of Education with these measures, the Minister of Education is also sending a message to all other school boards in the province about how the government will operate and that they should fall into line or face the consequences.

What is happening in public education in Calgary is of concern to all Canadians as it illustrates how the anti-social offensive is being waged by the ruling circles to undermine public education and expand the space for privatization and further wrecking of the public system.

Grant Thornton's mandate from the government was to look at "Governance and Financial Cost Management" with a focus on items such as "program delivery costing" and "specific cost centres" which include, among other things, "staffing levels and related compensation." Grant Thornton positions itself as an adviser to municipal governments and other public levels of government on "financial sustainability," which in plain English means advising governments on which cuts to make.

The review is in the service of the takeover of public education by private interests. The starting point is not that all children living in Alberta have a right to education, and that we need to work out how to guarantee that right. Rather, the outlook is that funding for education is a burden and a drain on society and other sectors of the economy.

The report itself presents a series of observations about what are considered positive and negative features of the CBE's finances. On the negative side is the fact that the CBE signed a long-term lease for their headquarters before oil prices crashed, and is consequently paying much more than current market rate. On the positive side, according to Grant Thornton LLP, the "CBE is currently on the higher end of efficiencies as compared to other school jurisdictions with respect to custodial staffing costs." The CBE even boasts that each full-time caretaker is assigned 2,361 square metres to clean, on average. No investigation is made into whether this is adequate or realistic even under normal circumstances. The report does not even recognize that in the conditions of a global pandemic, schools cannot be safely re-opened without a very significant increase in the level and frequency of cleaning.

The CBE is criticized for not having sufficient money in their operating reserves "at a time of financial uncertainty following the election of a new government." In other words, the government can set education funding at whatever amount it wants, has no social responsibility to ensure funding commensurate with the needs of students, teachers and education workers, and it is the CBE who is at fault for not being prepared to cope. The CBE should have anticipated a famine and put everyone on a diet in preparation.

The report summarizes its findings as follows:

"Overall, the findings are indicative of an organization that has undergone turmoil at the governance level with a focus on process over function and a short-term view of financial sustainability. This said, at the operational level of financial management we found many examples of strong financial processes and controls along with some areas for which we have provided recommendations for improvement."

The Minister has cherry-picked from the report to paint the desired picture of a failing public institution that has lost its way and needs government intervention to get back on track. Words from the report are twisted to make them sound more critical of the CBE than they actually are.

As CBE has supposedly "become focused on internal process related matters and policy interpretation rather than the strategic matters at hand," the solution is to make various amendments to operational expectation policies, to have a governance instructor approved by the Minister, and to improve its risk management program.

The business jargon is enough to make one's head spin, but one element leaps out: risk management. The conditions needed for students to thrive and teachers and education workers to meet those needs and to defend their rights are seen as a liability to the rich because it reduces the amount of social reproduced value (wealth) that they can expropriate and claim as private profit. For the rich, the education system is the source of the workers they need with the specific skills they require. Private interests also demand control over everything from building schools (public-private partnerships), to planning curriculum, and in higher education over research.

We need to provide the right to education with a guarantee because society needs enlightened teachers, education workers, schools, colleges and universities to help raise our children and open a path forward for the progress of society. We need an education system which recognizes that guaranteeing this right means that the needs of all students must be looked after, and the relevant programming provided. In particular, Indigenous children, kids whose first language is not English or French, and kids with special needs must all be provided with what they need to thrive.

The Kenney government has a different agenda. Its aim is to serve the private interests of those in control of the economy who make up the financial oligarchy, and in Alberta the energy oligarchs and their financiers in particular. Whatever does not serve this need is dispensable.

Among other things, Minister LaGrange has directed the CBE to "establish performance measures, which can be used to determine the quality of programs and the information needed to monitor the educational and cost effectiveness of supplementary programs."

What is being implied is that the CBE needs to refocus on its "core business" of educating students in the regular school setting. Within the Calgary public school system, there are a number of alternative programs, such as immersion programs, arts-centred learning, science-focused education, classes for pregnant students and new mothers, and outreach programs for at-risk students who are not successful in traditional schools. These programs often come with additional expenditures related to transporting students over longer distances or, in some cases with students in need, maintaining smaller class sizes.

Narrowing the scope of public education aligns with the objectives of  Bill 15, the Choice in Education Act, which was passed by the Alberta legislature on June 24. Bill 15 further centralizes the process for approval of charter schools in the hands of the Education Minister, and expands the criteria on which charter schools can be approved. The bill also removes the requirement that the public school board be invited to run an alternative program before it can be established as a charter school. It is also consistent with the United Conservative Party policy of "equitable per-student funding in accordance with school choice." Alberta already funds private schools at 70 per cent of the public system, and Kenney has made it clear he favours expansion of both private and charter schools. Forcing the CBE to refocus on its "core business" rather than its "supplementary programs," can serve to eliminate programs which do not serve the needs of the financial oligarchy, such as outreach schools. The most vulnerable students would be abandoned in the process, but this does not appear to be a big concern for the Minister of Education or the Alberta government.

The CBE is directed to "support classrooms in a more direct way (i.e. more "regular" teachers and fewer specialists, leaders, administration, etc). Rededicating resources to the "front lines" has become a mantra in the context of the anti-social offensive. It distorts the reality, which is that most teachers who are designated leaders are teaching full time or nearly full time, and that the few specialists who exist also provide vital services needed by students and teachers.

Other "financial management" measures include considering eliminating all bus service to students who live less than 2.4 kilometres from school and raising fees for transportation.

As the organization Support Our Students points out, the Education Minister's priority right now must be how to relaunch schools safely. Schools actually need more resources, not less, at this time. Students are already suffering from the arbitrary way in which the decision to close schools and lay off many education workers was made. The failure to consult teachers and involve them in decision-making is doing harm to students and the education system.

The government has failed to take up its social responsibility to adequately fund education, and when cracks appear in the system, it goes in for the kill. While all eyes are focused on how to overcome the crisis, the government has taken the opportunity to push an agenda of privatization. This is shameful behaviour. Meanwhile, it is teachers and education workers who are taking up social responsibility, in the face of the government's failure to do so. When schools were closed, teachers and education workers did not wait for a voice from on high to give them direction. They immediately went into action to check in on the well-being of their students and to work out together how online learning should take place. It is with this spirit that they will continue to defend public education.

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Dismantling Alberta's Post-Secondary Education System With Help from McKinsey & Company

On June 11, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced his government had signed a $3.7 million contract with McKinsey Calgary, subsidiary of a giant global U.S. management consulting firm, to review the province's post-secondary education system. McKinsey & Company or "The Firm" is the biggest management consulting company in the world; many of its employees have become CEOs of major corporations or key government officials. Former McKinsey managing partner Dominic Barton is now Canadian Ambassador to China. Former employee Robert Greenhill became president of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

At first glance, the United Conservative Party's (UCP) selection of McKinsey to review post-secondary education seems strange. According to McKinsey biographer Duff McDonald, the company "provides strategy and management consulting services, such as providing advice on an acquisition, developing a plan to restructure a sales force, creating a new business strategy or providing advice on downsizing." Clearly, none of these services relate to education. However, they certainly do not contradict the ongoing neo-liberal campaign to defund and privatize post-secondary education and further make it the handservant of industry.

None of the four McKinsey Calgary partners claims expertise in post-secondary education. In fact, three of the four state their main area of expertise is service to the oil and gas industry, while the other focuses on executive coaching. How this qualifies them to review post-secondary education is anybody's guess. But then again, the current Minister of Advanced Education came to his position from providing communication consulting to the private sector. His only post-secondary teaching experience is in business schools, which actually do not belong in universities since they non-critically treat business as self-evidently good.

This is not to say that McKinsey & Company has never produced reports on post-secondary education. For example, in 2012, they published Rethinking 101: A New Agenda for University and Higher Education System Leaders. None of the report's recommendations come as a surprise. They just recycle the usual ramblings of reactionary governments, for example, more partnerships with industry, outsourcing services, cutting employee benefits, eliminating "non-core" activities, and consolidating courses. The report says nothing about student learning conditions or instructor teaching conditions and how they can be improved. The report treats education as a business that needs to be run more "efficiently," which is pretty much how McKinsey Calgary will treat Alberta post-secondary education.

The second reason the selection of McKinsey seems strange is that a number of companies it has advised have subsequently experienced some of the biggest business fails of recent decades. They include the collapse of Enron, the fall of drugmaker Valeant, the failure of hedge fund Galleon, and various shady deals linked to the Gupta brothers in South Africa. Further, McKinsey has provided controversial recommendations for some questionable clients, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump administration, Saudi Arabia, and U.S. drug maker Purdue Pharma. McKinsey's advice to Purdue focused on how to boost opioid sales. Purdue now has $12 billion in lawsuits against it for starting and sustaining the opioid crisis.

The UCP appears to be quite cozy with McKinsey. On May 1, 2019, the UCP hired former McKinsey employee David Knight Legg as chief advisor on trade and finance. He has accompanied Kenney on several overseas investment trips. On June 5, UCP Minister of Advanced Education Demetrios Nicolaides publicly cited a 2015 McKinsey report called Youth in Transition, highlighting conclusions that only 34 per cent of employers and 44 per cent of students believed they were prepared for the workforce. This fits perfectly with the UCP agenda to more closely tie education to providing free training for the monopolies.

Since being elected in 2018, the UCP has implemented a number of "reviews" to try to fool the people of Alberta into supporting their policies. Each time they have ensured that those who conduct the charade will come to the UCP's predetermined conclusions and the McKinsey review will be no exception. Much of it will likely be neo-liberal boiler plate. If the review includes any real consultation with the people of Alberta, everything that contradicts the predetermined conclusions will be ignored. The UCP will then brag that both the experts and the public fully support their review and its conclusions.

Perhaps the most nauseating aspect of the post-secondary education review will be how the upper administrators of various Alberta post-secondary institutions will unhesitatingly welcome the "findings," whatever they may be. This has been the pattern so far even when the UCP cuts to post-secondary education funding have resulted in lost jobs, hiring freezes, cancelled programs, increased tuition fees, discarded libraries, and so on. Such destruction is obsequiously accepted by top post-secondary institution administrators accompanied by mindless mantras like "We must adjust to the current fiscal realities." Of course, one reason administrators cave in to the UCP's anti-education campaigns is that in August 2019, the UCP replaced the existing chairs of many post-secondary education institutions' boards of governors with their own agents, mainly from the energy industry.

The $3.7 million UCP review implies that there is some big mystery about what needs to be done in regard to post-secondary education in Alberta but there is no mystery. Just for starters, here are four steps which many have suggested should be taken as soon as possible. First, the right to education must be legislated. Second, funding to education must be greatly increased. Third, student fees must be frozen, then decreased and finally eliminated. Fourth, the practice of exploiting faculty by hiring them as "sessionals," with no job security, no benefits, and inadequate salaries must be stopped. These four steps alone will go a long way to reinvigorating post-secondary education in Alberta so that it can better do its real job, which is contributing to the advancement of society by serving the public interest.

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Performance-Based Indicators:
Another Zombie Idea

Like zombies rising from the grave, performance-based indicators (PBIs) are once again a hot topic with Alberta government officials and post-secondary education (PSE) administrators. On January 20, Minister of Advanced Education Demetrios Nicolaides announced that PBIs would be instituted in Alberta on April 1 and would be used to determine funding to universities, colleges, and technical schools. On March 27, Nicolaides retreated from his stand and said the PBIs would be postponed to the end of May due to the problems created by the COVID-19 pandemic but assured everyone that the idea will soon be reactivated.

The neo-liberal idea of PBIs, which originated in the business world, tries to tie "costs" to the production of a particular commodity, with the basic intention of driving down those costs. That is why the rise of PBIs is always accompanied by relentless budget cuts to public education. In the field of post-secondary education, common PBIs include enrolments, graduation rates, and hiring rates of graduates. But there are two things wrong with the idea of PBIs from the get-go. First, education is an investment, not a cost. Second, education is not a commodity; it is a public good which must be constantly expanded to bring about the continuous improvement of society.

PBIs have a long history but it is no accident they first became the vogue in the Reagan/Thatcher era, as one aspect of the neo-liberal movement is to transform universities into businesses, complete with the top down structures favoured by the corporate sector. Minor details like collegial governance (which has now been reduced to a ritual in most PSE institutions) and academic freedom (which is now being attacked under various guises, such as "incivility") were labelled as impediments to "doing business," much like workers' rights and environmental regulations. As Thatcher infamously said, "There is no society; there is only the market." So, the neo-liberal view is that the so-called free market should govern PSE and business managers should run the PSE institutions with that in mind.

Historically, PBIs have reached heights of true absurdity. This is mainly due to the endless attempts to reduce everything to numbers. In 1980s New Zealand, the government ridiculously proposed "costs-per-square-foot" as the true indicator of a PSE institution's efficiency. Other governments have suggested treating the graduate with a degree as a "product" of the staff, library, computer and other costs required to produce "it." A third approach is to tie "performance" directly to graduate hiring rates alone, as if that is even possible in today's gig economy when so many are part-time workers with no security, even at the PSE institutions themselves.

Clumsy attempts to apply the "numerical approach" to evaluating the effectiveness of PSE show over and over it is almost impossible to measure what PSE institutions do or should do. Graduation rates may be measurable. But how does one, for example, put a number on social contribution, critical thinking, creativity, tolerance, problem-solving skills, leadership, wisdom, access for marginal groups, diversity of staff, and so on? Scholars have spent decades trying to clarify what these things even are, let alone how to measure them. So PBIs simply discount these important factors. Governments and the administrators who do their bidding, by pushing PBIs, basically assert that what cannot be quantified is not valuable and therefore can be ignored. Perhaps they should listen more closely to Einstein's famous dictum: "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

A further point is that the items that are to be "measured" by PBIs are often not even under the control of the university or its staff. For example, when a government slashes operating budgets, the response of the university can only be to oppose the cuts or to knuckle under and figure out ways to eliminate staff and programs to meet the new budget guidelines, totally disregarding the fact that the staff are the producers of all value. Unfortunately, the second alternative is the one that PSE institutions in Alberta have chosen. Not a single PSE institution has stood up to the UCP government's cuts or to the mandating of PBIs. Of course, the fact that last August the UCP replaced extant PSE institution board chairs with their own appointees from industry has contributed to the undermining of internal resistance.

It is a delusion to think that PBIs will somehow ensure "accountability" and/or produce "excellence" in PSE. The idea is an insult to educators, students and support staff as well as a complete misrepresentation of the real purposes of education. Education is not a business, nor should it be the mere handservant of industry. PBIs' numbers will provide no guidance if the aim is really to improve our PSE institutions.

However, the other point is that it is just as possible that PBIs could produce exactly the opposite conclusion to that of the cost-cutters. Then they might be used to show that what universities really need is not cuts but more funding, legislation affirming the right to education, more permanent faculty with benefits, more and better equipment, and the freezing, reduction and eventual elimination of all student fees.

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Challenges in Ontario's Post-Secondary Education

Major challenges exist throughout the post-secondary education sector as the fall 2020-21 session approaches in the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. The shaping of post-secondary education over decades of retrogression and the anti-social offensive has left the entire system with few options: either a change of direction in the service of advancing Canadian society or more crisis and chaos will follow.

The Executive Director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), David Robinson, recently made the point that the "COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp relief the long-forming fault lines and fissures within our universities and colleges. The increasing reliance of our institutions on private financing, the exploitation of precarious labour, and the turn toward market-oriented curriculum and research have left us ill-prepared to deal with the current crisis."[1]

"During the past 30 years," he writes, "governments of various political stripes have steadily shifted the costs of post-secondary education from collective public funding to individual private tuition fees. The scale of this change has been nothing short of staggering. In 1990, just over 80 per cent of university operating funding came from government grants. As of 2018, that figure had plummeted to about 47 per cent. "The result," he points out, "is that our institutions have become financially addicted to tuition fees, including the high fees charged to international students. Institutions that have come to rely upon the latter to prop up their operations face a potentially devastating decline in those revenues if the pandemic persists into the next academic year."

There has been an 11 per cent decline in provincial funding per full-time student between 2008 and 2018. Fully 53 per cent of university funding now comes from tuition fees. Universities on average rely on foreign student tuition for 20 per cent of their revenues. In 2018 over 500,000 international students studied in Canada, bringing in more than $6 billion in tuition fees.[2]

Fleecing foreign students to sustain post-secondary education is another expression of state-organized racism in Canada, much like the human trafficking carried out through government-sponsored migrant worker programs, which denies these "guest" workers Canadian status.

Universities and colleges have been encouraged by the federal government, especially since the economic crisis of 2008, to solve their financial difficulties by increasing tuition and recruiting foreign students. While banks and the financial oligarchs were bailed out and society was saddled with the debt load, the cost of post-secondary education has been increasingly transferred onto students and their families in the form of higher tuition and debt. It has also resulted in much larger class sizes for students and an explosion of precarious contract teaching for faculty.

Most in the post-secondary education sector -- from students to faculty to administrative, maintenance, service and cleaning staff are concerned about the prospect of yet another round of cuts to funding for public education by various levels of government once the COVID-19 emergency response spending comes to an end. According to University Affairs online magazine, Manitoba and Alberta have instructed higher education institutions to develop scenarios for cuts of up to 30 per cent and in this direction some universities are already making non-academic staff redundant for the near term.[3]

Universities across the country appear to be making their plans with little, if any, input from the members of the academic community. The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) objected to this situation in a recent consultation held with the Ministry of Colleges and Universities Advisory Council, under the auspices of the Ontario Jobs and Recovery Committee. The OCUFA brief reports, "Since March academic staff have been devoted to getting through the term while taking the best possible care of their families and communities. On campus, members have undergone an overnight shift to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT)," which was defined by university administrations as a temporary move, a shift which created a myriad of challenges for faculty.

OCUFA continues: "It appears that remote teaching arrangements are not likely to be as temporary as we all hoped. While some research and campus operations may resume by the start of the fall semester, most universities have formally announced that the bulk of the fall term will be remote ... It is also expected that, where physical distancing is possible, some research projects will also resume on campus. This reliance on ERT is creating new challenges and exacerbating some of the tensions faculty experienced in the initial move to remote teaching. Adding to this tension is the fact that most universities only consulted faculty superficially or not at all about these looming challenges. If we are going to succeed in delivering post-secondary education through this pandemic, it is imperative that collegial governance and the collective bargaining rights of faculty be respected."[4]

Students, faculty and staff -- those most affected by the conditions at post-secondary institutions -- have essentially been marginalized, with no say over the safety or quality of their working and learning conditions. It cannot be allowed to continue that others make decisions that can adversely affect their lives while the only role they have is to react after the fact. The academic community must continue to raise their voices and take pro-active stands in determining their working and learning conditions and the very direction of post-secondary education itself.

Notes

1. "Imagining Education after the Pandemic" by David Robinson, CAUT Bulletin, May-June 2020.

2. Containing the Impact of COVID-19 on Higher Education by Michael A. O'Neill, policyoptions.irpp.org.

3. Michael A. O'Neill, ibid.

4. "COVID-19 and the Academy," OCUFA policy brief.

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Situation in Higher Education in Ontario


Post-secondary students rally in Toronto, January 18, 2020, against Ford government's cuts to education funding.

Workers' Forum spoke with Colleen Burke, President of USW Local 1998 about what is going on at U of T and in higher education settings in general. The administrative and technical staff at the University of Toronto, represented by United Steelworkers Local 1998, are staff who keep higher education running. Senior management at U of T and throughout higher education, are quick to say "thank you for all you do," but are arrogantly deciding what "back-to-work" protocols will be, while workers are given no say whatsoever and left to be reactive to management decrees. 

Workers' Forum: Let's start with a brief introduction.

Colleen Burke: Sure. I am President of USW Local 1998. We represent over 8,000 members -- administrative and technical staff at the University of Toronto, Victoria University, University of St. Michael's College and U of T School.

Our members have been working from home since about March 20. The university is still functioning. While most buildings are closed, there are a few exceptions such as residence buildings, health services for those on campus, and so forth.

It’s been a huge transition to get everybody working from home and of course there are laboratory technicians, food service people and others who aren’t working because their work cannot be done from home. U of T did guarantee pay continuity up to April 30 even for those who could not work from home. A lot of contracts ran to April 30. Then there are those employed in summer kids camps or hired for eight weeks of convocation employment and so forth.  We also have about 3,000 – 3,500 casuals and the University also extended guaranteed pay continuity to our casual members as well.  That was great. 

We've seen temporary layoffs too in a few departments. About 70 full-time people were given 13-week layoffs. They will qualify for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit and again, the university is stepping up with an additional $1,000 per month and paying both portions of their medical benefits.

WF: What have been the main issues the union and your membership are dealing with?

CB: Before the closure many were worried and wanted to work from home but they were prevented from doing so in most cases. It wasn't until the province declared an emergency that working from home got solved. Up to that time we were very busy with health and safety issues. Even now we are dealing with health and safety concerns of members providing services to students on campus, in residences, health services for students, IT people etc. For people working from home, child care is a big issue. Managers are leaning on staff working and parenting from home. Officially, the university position is that managers should be flexible but still some managers are very harassing of our members. Our members are also worried about layoffs. Some departments are ordering people to take vacation time. The union agreed as a way to mitigate layoffs.

WF: Is there talk about how you will transition to return to work?

CB: The health and safety plan for return to work is a big issue for the union. The University put out a roadmap statement on return to work. Our Joint Health and Safety Committees were never included in sorting out the health plan. The University retains that as a management prerogative. It is the same with protocols for return to work. It is bound to result in all kinds of complaints after the fact. We have a full time H&S officer but it is not going to be easy. USW 1998 is engaging with other unions and others on campus to work out appropriate protocols for return to work in the various work settings. This is how it is happening across board for all post-secondary institutions I think.

USW Local 1998 is working within the University of Toronto Employees Associations and Unions (UTEAU), an informal umbrella group of student unions, labour unions and faculty associations on all three campuses of the University. We are working on a common document about our values, aspirations etc. in light of COVID-19, to identify our immediate demands of the university and more long-term demands of the province. Universities are underfunded as is, and the worry is what will happen after the immediate crisis is over?

Daycare is going to be another serious issue. About 70 per cent of our membership are women. Women are carrying and will carry the brunt of this problem. I know of one member who had to go on stress leave because working from home while parenting was too much. Some people shorten the work week by sprinkling in vacation time. Others may opt for part-time, if possible, because it is too much without child care.

How are people even going to get to and from work safely? People are justifiably concerned about taking the transit. Who is responsible for looking out for people's health on public transit? As things start up, it is going to be a very serious concern.

WF: Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

CB: We are all very concerned about the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone in post-secondary is looking to what will happen in September. How many students will show up? How many international students will come? The reality here is that international students are seen as a cash cow. International student tuition accounts for about 20 per cent of U of T tuition revenue. How many will still pay through the nose for an online education experience, i.e. not in-class instruction.

There have been no federal funding announcements of support for post-secondary education. We want to see funding support to get through the impact of this pandemic. I know students want to see tuition cuts as well and I support that. But post-secondary education itself is going to have huge problems without additional funding. And when we come out of this are we going to see another round of austerity measures?

This year, 2020, is a collective bargaining year at the University of Toronto and all post-secondary workers are negotiating under the one per cent austerity measures imposed under Bill 124. Oddly, since the pandemic set in, that now just looks to be one among many problems we have to deal with.

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