By Gutting Its Own Public Universities, Alberta Is Showing Canada How to Destroy Education
Alberta’s premier, free-market champion Jason Kenney, is wreaking havoc on the province’s postsecondary education system — not just through cuts and privatizations but through a brutal reshaping of public education itself.
The present transformation of universities and colleges into factories that cater to the demands of the private sector is a matter of grave concern. (University of Alberta)
In April of 2021, Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party (UCP) government formally unveiled its plan to transform postsecondary education (PSE) in the province of Alberta. The UCP’s vision, laid out in its initiative, Alberta 2030: Building Skills for Jobs, is a strategy for tethering public PSE to private sector priorities.
In December, the UCP amended the Post-Secondary Learning Act with Bill 74, putting into law the plan of action contained in Alberta 2030 — a larger say for industry, the alignment of education priorities with those of employers, and prioritizing research commercialization. These developments come on the heels of years of deep funding cuts.
The result of this onslaught is skyrocketing student tuition and growing labor unrest. Faculty and staff are being told to work even harder for less. However, because of the UCP government’s constitutionally dubious secret employer bargaining mandates, union demands for proper compensation have been effectively hobbled. With Alberta’s 2022 budget doubling down on the attack on public PSE, it is time for educators, university support staff, students, and faculty associations to fight back.
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