Nova Scotia Post-Secondary Education Coalition calls for faculty, students and staff to play major role in upcoming PSE consultations
The Nova Scotia Post-Secondary Education Coalition is calling on the provincial government to recognize faculty, students and staff as equal partners in upcoming consultations on PSE in the province.
The Coalition, comprised of the Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers (ANSUT), the Canadian Federation of Students-Nova Scotia (CFS-NS), the Dalhousie Faculty Association (DFA) and the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU) issued a letter today to Premier Stephen McNeil, Progressive Conservative leader Jamie Baillie and New Democratic Party leader Maureen MacDonald, urging them to substantively include faculty, students and staff in the deliberations that will produce the next Memorandum of Understanding between the provincial government and the province’s universities. Dalhousie Student Union Vice-President (Academic and External) Jacqueline Skiptunis also acted as a signatory on behalf of Dalhousie’s student body.
The Coalition declared in the letter that “students, faculty and staff are united within the Nova Scotia Post-Secondary Education Coalition and, as those who know the strengths and weaknesses of universities and colleges best, we are the key stakeholder constituencies to be consulted.” In its most recent public opinion poll, Building for the Future: Public Opinion on Post-Secondary Education in Nova Scotia (2014), the Coalition found that nearly three quarters of respondents felt that students, faculty, and staff should play a major role in decision-making at post-secondary institutions.
“Three quarters of Nova Scotians want to see the faculty who teach, the students who learn, and the staff who work in our post-secondary institutions make the decisions about what their future will look like,” said Marc Lamoureux, ANSUT President. “The Nova Scotia government needs to engage faculty, students and staff as equal partners when policies relating to fees, funding and governance are being set.”
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• Read the letter here/Lisez la lettre ici.
• Read the press release here/Lisez la communique de presse ici.