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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