Province wants higher enrolment, “significant transformational change”
New Brunswick’s post-secondary strategy will reportedly be unveiled in Fredericton today. An op-ed by Post-secondary Education, Training, and Labour minister Ed Doherty in yesterday’s edition of the Times & Transcript alluded to elements of the plan.
Doherty pointed to a number of broad priorities in his piece for T&T. He said that the elimination of the Canada Millennium Scholarship Program, a source of $7 million that is dispersed annually to 2,600 New Brunswick students, will need to be replaced. The minister does not indicate that the new Canada Student Grant Program will bridge this gap.
Doherty also mentions expanded changes to the re-tooled community college system announced in the last provincial speech from the throne. Student mobility reform was highlighted in the op-ed.
As part of launching “significant and transformational change” to New Brunswick’s PSE system, Doherty wrote that the province will have to increase its post-secondary participation rate, which is lower than the Canadian average.
The minister concludes by stating that when the province does release its strategy, it will consult “students, the institutions themselves, other education stakeholders, communities and the private sector to ensure it becomes more accessible, more integrated and more responsive.”
Stay tuned.