Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services

Chapter 7: Post-Secondary Education
“For learners, greater differentiation of Ontario’s university sector offers clearer choices from a larger number of high quality programs,
clarifies the institutions that best serve their career and personal aspirations, and facilitates mobility and transitions between
institutions and Ontario’s post-secondary system.”
Harvey Weingarten, President and CEO, Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.
Differentiation is not a panacea for all the system’s issues but simply a logical progression to
improve quality and sustainability. Inherent in differentiation is the potential for reducing
inefficiencies and realizing cost savings by minimizing further duplication of programs.
Recommendation 7-5: Institute a process for establishing mandate agreements using a
review by either a blue-ribbon panel or the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario to
ensure the highest-quality programs are funded to grow and expand. This should be
completed in the 2012–13 fiscal year and must be transparent for the institutions and
the public.
Recommendation 7-6: Establish and implement a rational and strategic division of roles
between the college and university systems.
This division of roles would include the following features:
� Colleges and universities should agree on a standard of educational attainment and quality
that would allow college students who have completed two years and meet predetermined
academic achievement criteria to transfer into the university system;
� Colleges should not be granted any new degree programs, but should have existing
programs grandfathered;
� New programs at any post-secondary institution should not be approved by government
until the development of multi-year mandate agreements is complete;
� When considering future growth, the creation of new professional and specialized
programs such as law, medicine and business should not be approved without a
compelling business case; and
� The Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology should work with the College of Trades to
optimize the delivery of apprentice training in non-degree programs (see Chapter 9,
Employment and Training Services, for details on the College of Trades).
Recommendation 7-7: Create a comprehensive, enforceable credit recognition system
between and among universities and colleges. This is an absolutely essential feature
of differentiation.
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