,

September 29, 1986. Page 4.

The Other Press

 

The Assault on B.C. Education “3

By Janice Irving
Reprinted from the Capilano Courier
Canadian University Press

Crawford Killian is a veteran. An

author, teacher, regular columnist
on education, and the man who
called former B.C. _ universities

minister Pat McGeer “just another
alligator” in his recent book “School
Wars: The’ Assault on B.C. Educa-
tion”, Killian is also soft-spoken
and witty.

He is fighting for the future of
education in British Columbia.

Covers of his books “Icequake’’,
“Tsunami”, “Brother Jonathan”,
“Eyas” and “School Wars’ decorate
the walls of his office. Books about
writing and education line his
shelves. A calander picture of
Simon Fraser University hangs near
his desk.

But the real reason for Kilian’s
activism on behalf of beleagured
B.C. education sits on his desk.
Photographs of his two children --
“both in public school,” he says --

SCHOOL WARS:

are displayed prominently.

Elected in 1980 to the North
Vancouver school council, Kilian
says “things were beginning to go
sour even then” as a result of the
Education Interim Finance Act
which took commercial tax revenue
out of school council control. “Like
any other discredited politician, I
went to the media,” Kilian said

when speaking of his defeat at the °

re-election as a trustee and his
subsequent column at the B.C. daily
‘The Province’.

School Wars grew out of his
weekly column. “It was easier to
contemplate writing such a_ book
with the research I had accumula-
ted,” said Killian, who began teach-
ing at Capilano College in 1968,
where he now teaches communica-
tions courses.

Because education is one of the
major public expeditures in B.C.,
says Killian, it deserves greater
public awareness. “No one seemed
to be keeping track of what was

happening.”

He says he has experienced few
negative responses to his open
activism, although he admits he

doesn’t think he “has many friends
on the Socred caucus.”

“One of the things you begin to
discover is what little influence you
have,” he said when reffering to
taking on the government over
education policies. “Your best bet is
simply to ruffle the feathers of. some
officials,” Killian said.

He equates B.C. education today
with Third World standards. “B.C.
could become like Peru,” he says.
“Tt might mean cheap labour, but
we can’t let anyone drop-out.” The
value of scarcity, of less students
currently enrolled in school, could
be used to redesign the school
structure rather than “just patching
it up.”

Each drop-out from the __post-
secondary system might cost the
might cost the government $200,000
in social services, says Kilian, yet as

 

They would rather
spend money to keep
a young person on un-
employment than
spend less money to
put that person in a
classroom.

“pressure therefore falls on colleges
to discourage university transfer
students because they simply don’t
bring in enough money.”

Killan says the Socreds have not
just cut back on university funds but
attacked them.

“Presumably the Socreds_ run
polls which tell them _ university
bashing isn’t popular, yet they do it
anyway -- just as the WACky
Bennett Socreds did. The govern-
ment seemed trapped in a feedback

‘loop: it attacks an institution like the

universities, is criticised for it, and
in revenge renews its attacks,”
writes Kilian in “School Wars“.

“I heard from one UBC professor

that three top people he knows will

leave the university if the Socreds
are re-elected,” says Killian. “They
will leave rather than be consigned
to mediocrity.”

Since 1976, UBC has seen budget
reductions every year. In 1982/83
the university was cut by $7.5
million, which meant the elimina-
tion of 67 full-time academic posi-
tions and 94 full-time support staff
jobs. In August, 1983, UBC faced a
shortfall of $4.5 million.

“Like Simon Fraser

, University
and the University

of British

*. Columbia, UBC was driven to such

 

Education ‘could help to get us out of our
current economic mess...

 

..if we want to help education.

self-defeating measures as a 33 in-
crease in student tuition fees,”
Kilian writes.

In “School Wars”, Kilian also uses
SFU as an example of the problems
universities now face. Between Jan-
uary, 1982 and May, 1984, SFU’s
enrollment increased by 10.8% with
budget shortfalls _ totalling $12
million. “This was accomplished in
a fiscal version of the death of a
thousand cuts,” Kilian writes.

Kilian is not impressed with the
former B.C. Premier Bill Bennett’s
$100 million fund for excellence in
education. “It’s bogus; a scam,” he
says. “After years of hearing about
how we educators waste money on
frills, they’re giving us money for

-all. undergraduate

frills.”

Kilian thinks the problem is not in
sustaining a frill programme, but
the core curriculum itself. “Giving
B.C. education the $110 million is
like a man with gangrene up to the
elbows being offered a manicure,”
he says.

Kilian’s forecast for __ post-
secondary education are bleak. If
the Socred restraint policies con-
tinue he thinks colleges will wind
up being merely trade _ schools,
something they were never inten-
ded to be.

For survival purposes, UBC and
SFU could begin to handle different
levels of students. SFU would take
students, UBC

he writes in “School Wars” instead
of saving money with the university
cutbacks, the Socreds have _ in-
creased overall social costs. A

“They would rather spend money
to keep a young person on un-
employment than spend less —_
money to put that person in a class- «
room.”

Kilian says “it’s not the best and
the brightest -- it’s the people with
money,” who are students today.
Take student aid -- according to
Kilian, the provincial budget’s total
expenditure on student aid was $33
million, including bursaries and
grants. In 1984/85, it was down to
$2.5 million, mainly in the form of
student loans. It was raised to $4.6
million in the 1985/86 fiscal year, but

4

bursaries and grants remained %
scarce. 7
In colleges, there is a trend to
phase out university transfer
students.
“The powers in the Socred gov-.
ernment feel university

programmes in colleges are an in- 4
dulgence -- only 10% of the
students in colleges are taking these
courses. Career students are worth
6% more than university vaste
students in college.”

Oras. he writes in» his» book, 4

4

 

 

“The powers in the
Socred government feel
university transfer |
programmes in |
colleges are an indulg-
ence -- only 10% of the
students in colleges are
taking these courses.
Career students are
worth 6% more than °
university transfer —
students in colleges.”

 

the graduate-level students. “SFU
could become like Los Angeles State
College”, Kilian says, “and UBC like
Berkeley or UCLA.”

If restraint had not, be implemen-
ted? “We would have a much less
demoralized system, probably a lot
of political pressure about costs, but
we'd be keeping up with inflation,”
says Kilian.

“Education could help to get us
out of our current economic mess,”
Killan says, “if we want to help edu-
cation.”

“School Wars: The Assault on B.C.
Education”
_ by Crawford Kilian
New Star Books Ltd.
Approx. $4.95