Public Universities

public universities: They are talking about the need for a comprehensive strategy in Canada to better align education and training to the skills employers need. , according to Winnipeg Free Press. This may sound obvious and simple. But at public universities, the dominant players in our countrys educational establishment, both consulting with business and allocating resources to skills-short fields runs completely counter to an entrenched "academic freedom" culture. University faculty unions fiercely defend an insular, professor-centered paradigm that turns away thousands of students applying to skills-short fields, while graduating huge numbers of students in programs with dismal employment prospects. The net result of this dysfunctional situation is that the taxpayer money universities spend is doing little to solve our "jobs without skills" problem, while contributing greatly to our "skills without jobs" problem. VICTORIA, Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is doing it. Canadian Council of Chief Executives president John Manley is doing it. CIBC deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal is doing it. What are they doing? But what would the components of a "comprehensive strategy" be? Clearly, the first step must be identification of "the skills employers need" through educator/employer consultation. The second step is for educational institutions to give resource allocation priority to teaching those skills. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.