General
Canada faces economic and social challenges in the coming decades. Low birth rates and an aging population are combining with global pressures to develop a more highly skilled workforce to result in skilled labour shortages. These shortages are already being felt in various parts of the country and this trend will deepen in the next few years. To address these challenges, Canada must adopt a new strategy to accelerate post-secondary participation to reduce the number of young people not in education, training or employment. This strategy will have its own challenges.
By world standards, Canada’s overall rate of post-secondary participation is already high, though the growth rate is stagnant. Any real increases in Canadians’ rate of post-secondary participation must come from among those currently under-represented in Canada’s colleges and universities. Skilled immigrants (and their families) must also be integrated into the Canadian economy and society in a manner that takes best advantage of their skill sets. Many skilled immigrants remain under-employed and/or fail to achieve Canadian post-secondary credentials that would give them appropriate labour market access.
Canada’s education system has a major role to play in both integration and participation strategies. But both strategies will require major adjustments in current institutional policy and pedagogy and in institutional practices in areas such as outreach and recruitment, student aid, support services and facilities. Schools, communities, companies and voluntary organizations must also embrace these strategies and work in partnership with post-secondary institutions to achieve these national objectives.
Educational objectives must be driven by both economic and social imperatives. Increasing the post-secondary participation of under-represented groups will help promote social cohesion and shape a more equitable society. While many countries boast high levels of post-secondary participation, research shows that this participation is not equitable across all segments of society. Students from low-income households, ethnic backgrounds, Aboriginal communities and families without a prior pattern of post-secondary education (“first-generation” students) are among those less well represented at the post-secondary level.
These underrepresented groups face particular barriers to post-secondary participation, which may include weak academic preparation; inadequate or inappropriate information, advice and guidance; lack of social and cultural capital in addition to financial barriers. Addressing their particular needs will require adjustments at both the secondary and post-secondary levels, as well as effective co-operation within and across sectors to build linkages that are currently missing.
Countries have much to learn from each other as they experiment and innovate with new approaches to achieving more equitable participation in post-secondary education, and ultimately economic and social inclusion.
It is in this context that the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation and the European Access Network are organizing an international comparative conference on early interventions and post-secondary transition programs and services designed to increase participation rates in colleges, universities and technical institutes by under-represented groups. This is an essential conference for institutional decision makers and government policy makers, academics, researchers and practitioners who are concerned with transition arrangements – improving the connections and pathways to the post-secondary level through outreach and other programs.
The conference will compare transition-related policies and showcase best practices in place in a variety of countries. It will share international understandings and approaches to encouraging students from groups under-represented at the post-secondary level to complete high school successfully and pursue post-secondary studies.
The conference outcomes and recommendations will provide the basis for a one-day policy summit, designed to involve institution presidents and senior government decision-makers across Canada. This conference, therefore, offers a unique opportunity for international participants to play an important role in contributing to Canada’s development of long-term strategies to broaden participation in post-secondary education.
Keynote Speakers
Bahram Bekhradnia
Higher Education Policy Institute
Since 2002 Bahram Bekhradnia has directed the Higher Education Policy Institute, an Oxford-based think tank concerned with higher education policy. Since then HEPI has established a reputation for authoritative analyses of policy issues, based on evidence and experience; and Bahram’s advice and opinions are regularly sought on key HE issues by the media, policy makers and legislators, both in the UK and overseas.
Previously, Bahram was Director of Policy of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), which allocates £7 billion of Government grant to universities in England. He directed the development of national policies for learning and teaching, widening participation and for research and was at the heart of most of the key policy developments affecting HE in England during the 1990s.
Bahram has extensive international experience, and has advised a number of Governments on various aspects of higher education reform.
Bahram holds degrees in Literae Humaniores from the University of Oxford and was awarded an honorary doctorate of the University of North London. He is visiting professor of the University of Bath and visiting Professorial Fellow of the University of London Institute of Education, and is a member of the Council of the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Vivienne Brown
Head of Policy and Strategy
Careers Scotland
In her role as Head of Policy and Strategy, and member of the Senior Management Team, Vivienne has responsibility for developing and “positioning” Careers Scotland’s strategies through engaging in policy discussions with Scottish Government and relationship building with prominent national stakeholders. This involves making key connections for Careers Scotland work, knowledge management and commissioning research. She is also responsible for international connections and is a contributor to career guidance developments throughout the world.
Prior to Careers Scotland, Vivienne was Chief Executive of Lanarkshire careers company, and has over 20 years experience in a senior management and leadership role.
A short secondment to the Scottish Government in 2000 enabled Vivienne to contribute to the “shape” of Careers Scotland. A further secondment to Scottish Government in 2005/06 provided the opportunity to contribute to enterprise, social inclusion and educational policies.
Vivienne is currently Vice-President of the UK Institute of Career Guidance and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. She also chairs the Scottish Guidance Network.
Brian K. Fitzgerald
Executive Director
Business-Higher Education Forum
Brian K. Fitzgerald joined the Business-Higher Education Forum as Executive Director in 2005 and has led a major repositioning effort that has refocused the objectives of the organization. Previously, he served as staff director for a federal advisory committee that advised Congress on higher education and student aid policy. He also served as an adjunct associate professor of government at American University.
In the private sector, Dr. Fitzgerald held senior project management positions for large-scale research projects for federal agencies. Earlier in his career, he served as Assistant Dean of the college and Lecturer in education at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
Dr. Fitzgerald earned his master’s degree and doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he serves as Chairman of the alumni council. He received his bachelor’s degree from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, which named him Distinguished Alumnus in 2000.
David Stewart-Patterson
Executive Vice President
Canadian Council of Chief Executives
(formerly Business Council on National Issues) 
David Stewart-Patterson is Executive Vice President with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. Formed in 1976, the Council is an association of business leaders committed to the shaping of sound public policy in Canada, North America and the world. Its member chief executives head companies that administer C$3.2 trillion in assets, have annual revenues of more than C$750 billion and account for a significant majority of Canada’s private sector investment, exports, training and research and development.
As Executive Vice President, Mr. Stewart-Patterson has overall responsibility for policy development and manages the work of the Council’s policy staff. He also engages in advocacy on the Council’s behalf, writing articles and giving speeches, presentations and media interviews on issues including fiscal policy and taxation, regulation, innovation and competitiveness, North American integration, immigration, education and skills development, health care, social policy and corporate citizenship as well as public and corporate governance. He is the co-author, with CCCE Chief Executive and President Thomas d’Aquino, of the influential 2001 book, Northern Edge: How Canadians Can Triumph in the Global Economy.
Mr. Stewart-Patterson joined the CCCE in 1996 after 15 years in the media as a reporter, editor and senior manager. Among other positions, he has been Parliamentary Correspondent for the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business in Ottawa; Editor-in-Chief of the Robinson-Blackmore newspaper chain in Newfoundland and Labrador; and Business Editor for CTV’s Canada AM.
Born in Montreal, Mr. Stewart-Patterson is a graduate of Carleton University’s School of Journalism. He is a past president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, and is currently a director and Vice Chair of the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, which provides micro-lending and mentoring to young entrepreneurs, and a member of the Corporate Citizenship Committee of Imagine Canada (formerly the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy).
Sir David Watson
Chair of Higher Education Management
Dept. of Lifelong and Comparative Education
Institute of Education,
University of London
Sir David Watson is an historian and Professor of Higher Education Management at the Institute of Education, University of London. He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Brighton (formerly Brighton Polytechnic) between 1990 and 2005. His academic interests are in the history of American ideas and in higher education policy. His most recent books are Lifelong Learning and the University (1998), Managing Strategy (2000), New Directions in Professional Higher Education (2000), Higher Education and the Lifecourse (2003), and Managing Institutional Self-Study (2005).
He has contributed widely to developments in UK higher education, including as a member (from 1977 to 1993) of Boards and Committees of the Council for National Academic Awards. In 1988 he was appointed to the CNAA Council and the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council, and in 1992 to the Higher Education Funding Council (England). He chaired the HEFCE Quality Assessment Committee until his retirement from the Council in May 1996 and was a member of its Learning and Teaching Committee between 1998 and 2003. He was a member of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation's National Commission on Education (whose report Learning to Succeed was published in 1993), of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education chaired by Sir Ron Dearing (whose report Higher Education in the Learning Society was published in 1997), and of the Roberts Review of Research Assessment in 2002-03. He was the elected chair of the Universities Association for Continuing Education between 1994 and 1998, and chaired the Longer Term Strategy Group of Universities UK between 1999 and 2005. He is a Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation and a Companion of the Institute of Management. He was knighted in 1998 for services to higher education.
