Chronicle Herald: CBU gets new teacher program
Friday, May 2nd, 2008Dal scraps deal with Memorial
By KRISTEN LIPSCOMBE Education Reporter
Cape Breton University will get its new bachelor of education program, but Dalhousie University is ducking out of its deal with Memorial University before a plan to offer B.Ed. courses in Halifax even got off the ground.
Those are two outcomes of Education Minister Karen Casey’s response to a teacher education review, which she shared Thursday during a news conference at Province House. The three experts tasked to write the report made 19 recommendations for Ms. Casey’s consideration, many suggesting she chop bachelor of education programs because of a “significant” oversupply of teachers across the province.
Nova Scotia’s universities are churning out more teachers than are needed in the province’s classrooms — 1,000 graduates each year for 370 available jobs, according to the report released in January.
After hearing from the public and stakeholders such as educators and students, Ms. Casey came up with several measures to balance teacher supply and demand across the province, including new legislation she’ll introduce this fall.
The law would hand her the power to put her stamp of approval on all bachelor of education programs across the province, Education Department spokesman Dan Harrison explained. It would also require universities to get a go-ahead nod from the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission and target their B.Ed. courses to meet labour market needs.
Right now, the minister said, she has the power of provincial funding to persuade universities to cut or continue their teacher education programs.
“These efforts, we believe, will result in improvements in every facet of a teacher’s education, from the policy level to the classroom training,” she told reporters. “They are designed to train the kind of teachers that we want to have at the front of our classrooms here in Nova Scotia.”
Ms. Casey said she’s supporting existing B.Ed. programs at Acadia, Mount Saint Vincent and St. Francis Xavier universities, as well as at the province’s French first-language school Universite Sainte-Anne. She’s also approving a proposed partnership between Saint Mary’s and Mount Saint Vincent universities in Halifax, which will offer a five-year integrated bachelor of arts/bachelor of education program.
But she’s putting a stop to partnerships with Memorial University, with Cape Breton University winding up its B.Ed. deal after the 2008-09 cohort makes its way through the system. And she’s only allowing Cape Breton’s new program to start in 2009-10 under specific conditions, including a maximum enrolment of 40 students.
Nevertheless, Cape Breton University officials are ecstatic to receive ministerial approval for the 16-month program.
“I think it’s very good for us, but I think it’s very good for Nova Scotia,” president and vice-chancellor John Harker said Thursday after the news conference in downtown Halifax.
He said the oversupply of teachers doesn’t apply to all regions across the province, or to all teacher specializations. Ms. Casey herself said “action is needed to address . . . a shortage of teachers in certain important disciplines, such as math, French and technology, and a shortage of substitute teachers in some geographic areas.”
In a news release issued later Thursday, Mr. Harker said “offering our own degree means Island students can now stay here to earn their education degree; it will help stem the tide of out-migration . . . and keep important dollars and knowledge skills in the province.”
That applies to Cape Breton’s Mi’kmaq communities, which pleaded with the province to approve the new program. Six chiefs sent a letter to Ms. Casey stating the native population is young and growing, creating a “need for additional teachers knowledgeable in Mi’kmaq education.”
The minister said she agrees with the review panel that Dalhousie shouldn’t start up a new partnership with Memorial, which would have allowed students to take bachelor of education courses here starting this spring.
Dal spokesman Charles Crosby confirmed Thursday the university is taking the hint and has already discontinued the deal.
“The minister had asked us to suspend our activities pending this announcement, which out of respect for government, we did that,” he said.
Earlier this month, however, the university issued a news release calling for applications to the new program.
“We were responding to demand,” Mr. Crosby said.
Memorial spokesman Ivan Muzychka added later Thursday that the university “received a great number of applicants to this program, many more in fact than we could accept.”
He said Memorial will release a more detailed response today.
New Democrat education critic Leonard Preyra said he supports the minister’s approval of the new Cape Breton University program and a SMU-Mount partnership, but he added there are some “fundamental problems with the minister’s response.”
“No other employer has the right to control supply and demand, particularly at universities, which are arm’s-length agencies,” the Halifax Citadel MLA said Thursday. “This will give the department the opportunity to make decisions based on political reasons. . . . It touches on academic freedom.”
But the Liberals are backing the education minister.
“I think these initiatives are very, very sound and I think the fall legislation should prove to be really the kingpin for going forward,” Kings West MLA Leo Glavine, his party’s education critic, said Thursday.
He said the new Cape Breton program shouldn’t be limited to 40 seats, but added, “I feel very strongly that these articulation agreements with Memorial, or any other university, are not something that should be part of our teacher training.”
Mary-Lou Donnelly, president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union, said at first glance that the education minister’s response looks good.
“I’m really . . . very thrilled with it,” she said over the phone Thursday. “Having high standards in Nova Scotia not only gives us high-quality teachers within our own province, but it also gives us high-quality teachers who can go anywhere in the world and teach.”
EDUCATION MINISTER’S REVIEW:
More highlights from the education minister’s response to the provincial teacher education review:
•The Education Department will establish a Minister’s Advisory Council on Teacher Education that will address policy and programs.
•The new council will examine the balance between theoretical and applied aspects of a teacher’s education.
•A new task force will recommend improvements to the practice-teaching component of teacher education programs.
•The Education Department will help school boards and the Nova Scotia Teachers Union create an orientation, mentoring and development program for new teachers.
Source: Education Department ( www.ednet.ns.ca)