VOLUME 15 NO. 1 SEPT. 21 TO OCT. 5, 1983.

THER PRESS

SERVING NEW WESTMINSTER AND MAPLE RIDGE CAMPUSES

 

 

    
   
   
  
   
   
  
   
   
 
  
  

Sandra McMillan and

lan Hilborn

Victoria now has a strangle-
bId over what used to be the
bmmunity colleges in British
plumbia. A

Last Friday’s passing of Bill
the college and institution
dment act, has elimin-
ed all public input into post-
bcondary administration.
here’s no doubt who’s boss
bw,’’ said Douglas College
esident Bill Day, after three
fferent advisory groups that
boperated with the ministry
education and the college
bards were scrapped.

Bill 20 also cuts public rep-
sentation at the college
bard level allowing the gov-
nment to appoint whomever
wishes to administer the
blleges. At Douglas, four out
nine board members have

 

lost their positions.

Al Coulson, one of the
recently ditched members
said, ‘‘It’s too early to tell
what this would mean.”’

‘‘These positions were
needed for communication
between the secondary scho-
ols and colleges,’’ Coulson
said. ‘It was a disappoint-
ment.”’

Stuart Graham, a govern-
ment appointee on the board
said, ‘‘| regret that local input
has been abolished.’’

Graham said that when the
boards were first implemented
around 1968, the number of
government appointees was
one less than those elected
from the school trustees. Sev-
eral years ago that situation
was reversed and now those
elected positions have been
eliminated.

Start with the bad

According to Graham, the
B.C. Association ofColleges,
which is elected from the
different college boards in the
province, sent a letter to the
ministry expressing concern
aoe the changes made in the

Wl.

“Obviously they didn’t pay
any attention to it,’’ he said.

The three councils abolish-
ed last. week were the occup-
ational training council, the
academic council and the man-
agerial advisory council.

The two former acted as a
buffer zone between the col-
lege boards and the ministry
in deciding curriculums across
the province. The latter acted
mostly on terms of budget-
ting.

The ministry now wields the
power they have stolen from
the councils.

“This is not good. for the
education system,’’ said Day.
The bill gives the ministry
total control over curriculum

priorities in B.C.
‘“At best you can hope that

the minister does not use that
power,’’ said Day.

Instructors in B.C. are crit-
ical of the New Democratic
Parties weak stand towards
the majority of bill included in
Bill Bennett’s restraint pack-
age.

“All of these bills are a
package to fundamentally
change the way of life in this
province,’’ said Douglas and
Kwantlen faculty association
president, Ralph Stanton.

‘It is not good enough to
say we are only going to fight
some of them,’’ he said.

Bill Hedlund, another gov-
ernment appointee to the col-

news

lege board at Douglas offered
no comment on the passing of
Bill 20 and said,’’| have no
opinion of that right now.’’

(Other Press feature

center spread

 

 

One way to find
mushrooms (and avoid
the law) in British
Columbia.