Boom Boom Boom Boom: Echoes in the Schools

      So, do you really want to know how shitty your (Canadian) university is? Well, Macleans has its annual rankings out, and, as usual, the Not-So-Good Doctor's institution has rated quite poorly. This does not surprise. (Nor does it likely surprise any of those that attend same institution.)

      On another note, the tenor of the report isn't so much alarming as it is worrisome. The damage to our universities has been extensive, and more extensive than we had presumed. By the way, the admissions minima mentioned in the summary article are inflated: 80s and 90s were given out far too generously, and the secondary school grades are increasingly meaningless. Right, Anne? Right.

      Note, too, this disturbing paragraph:

Keep in mind: even at the height of the baby-boom bulge, the biggest year-to-year growth was 25,000. Canada responded by building new universities and filling them, with students and faculty. Now, as the babies of that well-educated baby-boom generation--the echo boom--beat a path to the post-secondary doorstep in record numbers, the faculty who taught their parents are heading in the opposite direction, retiring in record numbers as well. In 1990, there were 532,000 full-time students enrolled in Canadian universities and 36,400 full-time faculty to teach them. This fall? Virtually no change in the number of full-time faculty.

No bloody kidding. Our politicians don't seem to realize that stuffing our schools is not the same as stuffing one's brassiere.

      The shape of things to come? Higher tuition, bigger classes, fewer faculty, et cetera. You know: same ole, same ole.

      Probably Controversial Aside: It's also probably time we faced facts: as elitist as it may sound, there are far too many people going to university, many of whom shouldn't be there. Universities were never meant to be simply 'that place you went after high school.' At the university level, students ideally should be interested and fully-engaged young thinkers: universities were intended to advance thought, not to provide people with degrees so they can get jobs (more than likely having nothing to do with their purported fields of study). Bah, humbug.