Date of Award

1-1-2006

Document Type

Thesis - ECU Access Only

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

School

School of Education

Faculty

Faculty of Education and Arts

First Supervisor

Dr Max Angus

Abstract

For the last two decades as an academic administrator in public colleges of applied arts and technology both in Ontario, Canada, and in the United Arab Emirates, I have observed that no other factor has challenged the leadership, administration, and staff of these organizations abilities to achieve their goals, and meet the needs of their stakeholders, more than the decisions of governments relating to the funding of higher education.

There can be no question that without money, none of these institutions would exist, and while there have been years of plenty, much of the last twenty years in the Ontario college system, has been characterized, (and some would say traumatized) by scarce resources, and the lasting impact of the dramatic across-the-board cuts to the funding for higher education by the Provincial Government in the mid-1990's. Even in the oil rich UAE, I witnessed the results of the government's failure to keep pace with the dramatic growth in enrollments at the Higher Colleges of Technology. While the allocation to the colleges remained almost static, enrollment grew from 3,000 students on eight campus locations, to almost 14,000 students and eleven campuses over a six-year period. In order to balance the budgets in the early years of this decade, colleges were forced to undertake measures like combining programs, reducing program hours, freezing the salaries for teachers and administrators, increasing teachers' workloads, and reducing the funding for capital and instructional equipment.

While money seems to be ultimately behind everything we seek to accomplish, it has been surprising to find that so few books and scholarly articles have been published dealing with funding issues in higher education. This was particularly the case with regards to ones with Canada, and the Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAATs), as the context. While this collection of papers, has used Ontario and the CAA Ts as the focus for the exploration of a number of current funding and funding related issues, it is hoped that the practical nature of these inquiries will make them useful to a far broader audience of academics, administrators, and policy makers in the area of higher education.

It is worth noting that two of the articles in this collection have recently been published; Globalisation, Internationalization, and the Recruitment of International Students in Higher Education, and in the Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology in the Canadian Journal of Higher Education, (Volume 35, No 1) and The Post-secondary Education Choice and Excellence Act, 2000 and the Development of Private Universities and Private Post-secondary Degrees in Ontario in the OISE Higher Education Perspectives (Volume 1, Issue 2).

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