Does structure matter: (Where) do questions about structure fit on the higher education policy agenda? Paper presented at the John Deutsch Institute’s Higher Education in Canada Conference

The primary focus in higher education policy discussions in Canada for the past twenty-five years has been on the topics of funding levels and mechanisms, accountability, accessibility, and quality. To be more precise, the focus has been on these topics in relation to existing postsecondary education institutions as each of them continues to perform within the framework of its existing institutional mission. The recent focus in higher education policy discussions contrasts with the focus in an earlier era, from the early 1960s to the early 1970s. In that decade, the emphasis was not so much on the individual institution, as on the structure of emerging and developing systems of higher education. By structure, I mean the distribution of postsecondary institutions by size, mission and type, and by geographic location. In that earlier period, across Canada a lot of effort went into the question of what was the optimal, or at least most appropriate, structure for higher education systems. The outcomes of these efforts included some remarkably articulate and cogent visions for provincial higher education systems, such as the Macdonald Report in British Columbia, the Parent Commission in Quebec, and- fittingly, given the host of thi