How to Turn a University Into a Glorified High School

 

Ian D. Clark is Professor of Public Policy and Governance here at the University of Toronto. He has attracted a lot of attention lately because he and his colleagues advocate the creation of Teaching-only Universities in Ontario. The scary part of this ridiculous idea is that it might soon become official policy of the Ontario government as described in a recent article by Louise Brown in The Toronto Star [Teaching-only universities would cut education costs, author says].

Undergraduate universities that focus on teaching only would create cosier classes, cut salary costs and boost student satisfaction, argues Ian Clark, the former head of the Council of Ontario Universities.

Moreover, he says professors at these new universities should be required to teach twice as many courses as usual — a full 80 per cent of their time with 10 per cent left for research and 10 per cent for administration.

Clark and professor David Trick are co-authors of a controversial new book that calls for new teaching-oriented universities where profs would have much higher course-loads. Simply by doubling the number of courses a professor teaches each semester to four from two could cut the operating cost of educating a student to $9,800 from $14,300 at a campus of 10,000, Clark noted Tuesday at a conference sponsored by the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Having profs teach more courses is one cost-saving tip rumoured to be part of economist Don Drummond’s report next week to Premier Dalton McGuinty.

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