“I would advise people against purchasing an education at a college where the college isn’t regulated and reviewed by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. Newspapers like your own can be very helpful in that. Because we’re trying to get that kind of information out so interviews like this are very helpful.”
In October 6th’s Ontario elections, McGuinty Liberals made a number of significant promises for more Ontario students to have access to postsecondary education. One of those promises is already in effect as of January 1st, 2012. McGuinty government is giving $1,600 a year credit to families that earn less than 160,000 to help them send their kids to postsecondary education.
Another promise McGunity Liberals made was to open a college campus at a high growth area like Brampton, Milton or Markham. Generation Next got in touch with new Ontario Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, Mr. Glen Murray (MPP from Toronto Centre) to seek update on government’s priorities and what can Ontarians expect from Liberals in the next four years.
Here is our conversation with Minister Murray:
GN: The government committed to provide a $1,600 tuition break to families for facilitating post-secondary education. How does the government plan to pay for this?
It is being paid for by reducing expenditure on lesser programs. Some of the older programs will be phased out and there will be reduction in the administrative costs. So some savings will be achieved because some students will require less student’s aid in the future. So offsetting expenditure will pay for us.
GN: What is the eligibility for this?
This is a program that’s specifically designed for today. By that I mean that the current conditions in the economy are making it very hard for some families to keep their kids in school. Many large families can’t even afford students entering college or university or enter the second or third year. So this program applies to any student whose family income is $160,000 or less, who has completed high school in the last four years. This is for low-income families and more modest income families, and it’s for students and families who are about to enter university or college in the last four years. Most people want to see their children succeed and have education, so there’s a lot of pressure.
GN: How can students who can’t pay back their loans be helped?
This will help because OSAP—the Ontario Student Aid Program- is still very much in place. Half of the students, around 155,000 are already on some form of student aid.
GN: But my question was with reference to students who have graduated and started working in jobs. If they lose the job or are laid off midway and can’t pay back the loan, is there a way you can help them?
Yes, there is an interest forgiveness program; so students can get forgiveness if they are unemployed, and we provide different types of assistance to those who are unemployed. We don’t charge them until they are working; other students can get reductions in their interests and reduce payments by working in the not-for-profit sector.
GN: Liberals also committed to opening a new college campus in high-growth areas. Two of these areas are Milton and Brampton. How soon can we expect to hear about this?
The high-growth areas are in Toronto and in the 905, and in suburbs like Brampton, Markham and Mississauga. There’s a proposal being developed for Brampton..we’ve not picked a city for them. We are expecting to get proposals from a number of universities, for example from Brampton, Toronto, Hamilton. All of those proposals will be evaluated. I would expect within the next five years the construction for those colleges to start.
GN: Recently, there were some stories about colleges giving out fake degrees. The South Asian community is a little more vulnerable when it comes to these kinds of scams. How do you think the community can protect itself from these fraudsters?
People have to understand that if you have a post-secondary education in a public college or universities, you’ve got about no chances of getting into fraud. So this only applies to a small number of private colleges…these are run as private businesses; they charge whatever they want. During the first six months of the past year, we took over a hundred legal actions against private colleges that were not playing by the rules, colleges that would enroll students into the college but has gone bankrupt before the students finished the course they were in. There’s an inspection branch within the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities that does inspect colleges and make sure the colleges are properly regulated and certified.
I would advise people against purchasing an education at a college where the college isn’t regulated and reviewed by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. Newspapers like your own can be very helpful in that. Because we’re trying to get that kind of information out so interviews like this are very helpful.
GN: The government also committed to giving $40,000 a year scholarships to international students. What has been the reception to this program been like?
This is for graduate students and international students, particularly from countries like China and India. We have an increasing demand for students in the PhD programs. It is very much in the interest of Canadians that we are able to attract some of the best and the brightest in the world. So you can get these $40,000 scholarships—a small number of them—if you are an elite PhD student in India, China or another country, who would like to complete their graduate education in Ontario. These are people who come to Canada not looking for a job, but often creating them. So whatever field they are in, they often would choose to stay in Canada, be researchers and help build the Canadian economy.
Having said that, we have about half a billion dollar in student aids and scholarships given to Ontario resident students. This (the international scholarship) is about a $30 million program—an important program, but a very modest program.
GN: Is the government still committed to giving these scholarships in spite of tough economic times ahead in Ontario?
Absolutely. As a matter of fact, even more committed. Maybe I can give you one example of why this is important. When I was the Mayor of Manitoba, Winnipeg, one of the things we did was to attract the foremost cardiovascular researcher in the world. He came from India and his name is Naranjan Dhalla. Once he established himself in Winnipeg, he attracted 360 young PhD students in cardiovascular research. Winnipeg, which is a relatively small city, compared to some of the major research centres is one of the world’s most well-known cardiovascular research centres in the world. Because one man named Dr. Naranjan Dhalla decided to relocate his family from India to Winnipeg and build a research community around him that’s not small at all. So when you get elite researchers come and complete their education here and start doing globally significant research, you create new businesses, new jobs around them. You also make Toronto or Kitchener or Hamilton or London a global centre for research.
GN: Our Premier is often called the Education Premier. What more can we expect from the McGuinty government with regards to post-secondary education?
We know that will give those children much better chance at success in life and improve their living skills right through to a major expansion of graduate programs and advanced learning…We are also looking at online learning, to developing the online campuses so students are able to do more, sitting at their computers or home or when they are working part time. We call it hybrid education, in which they do part of the education in the classroom and part of it online. This is likely to be a large part of the expansion of the college and university system—making learning more affordable and much easier for students to acquire their degree and get the education they need.
By Bhaswati Ghosh