MAD HATTER PAGE 2

DOUGLAS COLLEGE

Aout et
AnUriVES

 

 

 

The Provincial Government is taking the
"community' out of British Columbia's
young community college system. Pressures
from Victoria brought about by severe
financial restraint, are playing havoc
with local initiative and input into
college programming.

That was the message College President
Bill Day gave to over 140 fall graduates
recently, as he warned that community
control over the affairs of the College
is being eroded.

Douglas College, just over ten years

old and serving the suburbs of Vancouver
with a wide range of educational oppor-
Fcunities, has always welcomed the
Ministry of Education's leadership and
direction, says Day. "But it shouldn't
be at the price of ignoring the needs

of local people."

Day, who helped found Douglas College

as a local Surrey School Board employee,
told the audience that there is a "strong
drift in the direction of centralization,"
with provincial educational priorities
becoming more important than local needs.

The current trend of centralization in
the control of college programming is
presently being argued as a more
effective and efficient way to run the
community college system.

However, Day contends that the residents

in the Douglas College region would never
have seen a community college had it been
left up to the province to start the ball
rolling.

"Our stance is that local initiative

was required to bring community colleges
into existence and continued local
initiative, backing, and control is
going to be required to keep them in

 

existence."

 

SUMMARY OF GRADUATION SPEECH
BILL DAY ON DOUGLAS COLLEGE

"The college has one thing uppermost in
its mind and that is the welfare of students
and the local people," Day explained.

Douglas College was founded in 1969 when
eight school boards and several municipal
councils pressed a reluctant provincial
government into starting a new locally
available and inexpensive institution.

The college would provide adult education,
occupational, career and academic training
to a region with over 25 per cent of
British Columbia's population.

"Tt was only continuous pressure
during the middle to late sixties
that forced a skeptical government,
step by step, into permitting the
colleges to start," Day said.

In 1965 the cost of educating a

full time student at Douglas College
was $1,200 compared to $5,000 today.
Of that total amount, the government
paid $540, the student $200 and the
local taxpayer $460 out of the mill
rate. Today, the provincial govern-
ment pays over 90 percent of the
total cost of educating a college
student.

Day ties the erosion of community
control at the college to this
shift in funding away from the
local taxpayer.

"Most of us are perfectly well aware
of the fact that pipers do call the
tunes, however this has created and
is creating some current problems,"
Day said.

One of those problems is that

Douglas College, which started out
taking instructions from its community
appointed board amd one official in the