QUEBEC – A crowd of Quebec students took to the streets Monday over the province’s plan to raise tuition rates that are, by far, the lowest in the country.
About 60,000 post-secondary students called a one-day strike, and a few thousand converged in Quebec City where university officials and the provincial government were meeting at a hotel.
According to Statistics Canada calculations, which include both in- and out-of-province students, the average annual tuition in Quebec is just $2,415 – less than half the Canadian average of $5,138.
The province, which is grappling with a budget deficit and heavy debt, says everyone must share the responsibility for rising education costs.
Education Minister Line Beauchamp and Finance Minister Raymond Bachand are meeting with university rectors today to discuss solutions to the chronic financial shortfall.
The schools want the students to foot a large fee hike – to $3,680 per in-province student per year – by 2014. That amount would still fall well short of most Canadian provinces.
But Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, a spokesman for one of the student groups, says the reason tuition fees are so low in Quebec is because hikes have been fought every time.
Universite de Laval rector Denis Briere, head of the The Conference of Rectors and Principals of Quebec Universities, says the only way to solve the budget woes is to raise tuition fees.
The conference released a study last week that showed Quebec universities are chronically under-funded in comparison with the rest of Canada, estimating a $620-million shortfall in 2007-2008.
"The decisions have to be taken quickly," Briere says, adding the, "not-in-my-backyard," attitude has left no one willing to foot the bill.
Quebec lifted a tuition freeze in 2007 with the fees rising about $100 a year until 2012. But that hasn’t proven to be enough.
"The students must pay their fair share of the costs," said Bachand, without attaching a dollar figure to what he meant by "fair share."
Quebec students’ tuition accounts for about 12 per cent of education costs, compared to an average of about 25 per cent in other provinces.
Beauchamp says universities will also be required to be more accountable and have certain performance incentives they must reach.
Quebec universities have an accumulated deficit of $483 million.
The province says it has already done its part by increasing funding from $1.9 billion to $2.9 billion between 2003 and 2010.
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