What's behind the Liberals' move to increase the length of teachers college?

John Milloy, Minister of the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities ("MTCU"), announced today that if the provincial Liberals win the upcoming election they'll double the length of teachers college to two years. This announcement came under the guise of increasing teacher quality, but what's underpinning this policy is the massive glut of young teachers who have been unable to find jobs due to the absence of labour market planning by Ontario's government. The dimensions of this problem were traced in a report by the Ontario College of Teachers earlier this year which found that there was: a vast oversupply of new teachers amid a period of weak demand for their services; systemic unemployment and underemployment of new teachers; and, a long-term trend that indicates weak future employment prospects for new teachers.

The burning question is why was this problem allowed to progress to the point of crisis. The Ministry of Education and the MTCU created this problem by: tacitly encouraging tens of thousands of students to attend teachers college while knowing that the labour market in the broader public sector could not provide jobs for most of them; allowing universities to overload education faculties with record numbers of students; abdicating any sort of responsibility vis-a-vis workforce planning as result of the proliferation of the neoliberal approach to governance which holds that governments have no place "interfering" in the labour market; and, allowing the proliferation of information asymmetries by not informing education students about the actualities that exist for new teachers in the current poor labour market. Much like the problem currently faced by recent law graduates, it seems that new teachers have been left holding the bag for years of shoddy work by bureaucrats, the continuing "see no evil, hear no evil" stance by university administrators, and the inaction by organizations representing teachers which rushed to support the end of mandatory retirement at the expense of intergenerational equity.

While increasing teacher quality is a laudable policy goal and this move has been discussed for a number of years, it's entirely possible that prospective teachers can be prepared for the classroom without increasing the amount of time it takes or the amount of tuition charged. Forty years ago my mother was eighteen when she started teaching after one year of teachers college, now young people are expected to stick it out in university for six years or more for the chance to compete for a shrinking number of jobs. It appears that policy makers didn't consider nuanced alternative measures such as expanding the number concurrent education degrees or increased screening of candidates before floating this flawed policy balloon. It's not fair or equitable that this generation has to bear the brunt for past policy blunders or has to contend with a government that is unwilling to enact policy that eases the entry of young people into the labour market. If you have any comments please send me an email and for my previous posts on this topic see: here and here. 

Is Ontario's Legal Establishment Scamming Law Students?

There's a crisis affecting recent law graduates in Ontario. In a nutshell the labour market for articling students (and for young lawyers) is depressed with hundreds of students being unable to transition from law school into the legal profession each year. Little is being done to address this situation by the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Ontario Bar Association ("OBA"), the Provincial Government, or the law schools themselves. Students are incurring massive debts, losing out on some of their prime income generating years while being jobless or underemployed, and are having to jump through hoops to enter the legal profession. This post is designed to identify the problems, cover off some of the literature on this complex topic, and offer a few modest ideas. 

As an aside this renewed debate in Canada comes at a time when U.S. law schools are under increasing scrutiny for the admitting record numbers of students during an recessionary economy where employment prospects are bleak. There's action being taken as well, with a bipartisan push from the U.S. Senate to hold the American Bar Association to account for the explosion in law students unable to find jobs. Here are some key articles from the U.S. debate: "The Broken Law School Model: What Is To Be Done?"; "The Case Against Law Schools"; "Law School Economics: Ka-Ching!"; and, this excellent critique of the preceding article.

The legal trade magazine Canadian Lawyer published a feature length article this week outlining the dimensions and some of the underlying causes for the crisis. My take on the situation is that the lack of sufficient articling positions can be partially explained by: graduates increasingly wanting to live in the major urban centres of Ottawa and Toronto; a depressed legal market in the wake of the 2008 recession; the increased utilization of cost-efficient case management strategies and outsourcing by Bay Street firms that decreases the need for high numbers of articling students; the increased sophistication of clients and a reluctance to foot  the bill for training new lawyers;  the belief that Ontario is headed for a skills shortage in the near to medium term; the push in recent year by Ontario law schools to dramatically increase class size with little oversight from the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities ("MTCU"); students returning to Ontario after going to other provinces and jurisdictions, such as Australia, to obtain their law degrees; the increasing reliance on medium and large firms for the creation of articling positions; the greying of the profession; and, a general reluctance by many members of the profession and firms to take a financial hit by providing the practical training to teach the hard skills that aren't taught in law schools.

In June 2011 the Law Society created an Articling Task Force to study the problem. This is the second time in five years that the Law Society has examined the articling process and given that nothing changed in the wake of the findings of a 2008 study it remains to be seen what will be accomplished this time. Other key stakeholders such as the MTCU, OBA, and the Deans of Ontario's law schools have remained virtually silent on the crisis facing law graduates. Given the deepening impact this problem is having it's problematic that's these key groups are not advancing concrete solutions and fostering dialogue amongst policy makers, the profession, and law students themselves. Below I've come up with a number of ideas that could be enacted as part of a package of reforms to remedy the current articling crisis.

What can the Provincial Government do?

(1) Allocate increased funding to Legal Aid Ontario, ministries, and tribunals to create one hundred permanent articling positions for Ontario trained law students with the goal of alleviating the current articling crunch. The reasoning here is that the MTCU bears some responsibility for poor labour market planning, the cost is relatively low, and there's a desperate need for increased access to justice for marginalized citizens in Ontario; (2) cut the number of law students in Ontario in the short-term and institute hard caps to the number of law students each law school can admit each year; (3) provide tax incentives and loan forgiveness for young lawyers who choose to practice outside of large urban centres; (4) create a pool of money to subsidize the cost to firms in small centre and rural locales to hire articling students; and, (5) explore increased regulation and oversight of the Law Society if it fails to address the articling crisis.

What can the Law Society do?

(1) Engage with law students, articling students, and young lawyers to properly assess the dimensions of the current crisis; (2) develop alternative entry routes into the legal profession for people unable to find articling positions; (3) create a standing committee with student membership that actively monitors the labour market for articling students and young lawyers; (4) proactively communicate with prospective law students at the time they apply to law school about the situation that exists in the labour market to address information asymmerties that currently exist; and (5) create more initiatives, resources, and support for small firm and sole practitioners to assist them in hiring articling students.

What can law schools do?

(1) Immediately reduce the number the number of students admitted each year until the labour market is stabilized; (2) revise the curriculum to teach the actual practice of law along aside the theory; (3) make full semester clinical placements a mandatory component of legal education; (4) ensure that career services offices are staffed with competent professionals who can actively guide students through the transition into the labour market; and, (5) ensure that students are provided with regular updates about the state of the labour market for articling students.

That's my take on the articling crisis. I'll be following the work of Articling Task Force closely and will report on any significant developments. If you have any comments please email me and if you're a recent law graduate struggling to find a position I'd love to hear from you about the on the ground situation.

Is government policy leaving youth behind? An interview with Matt Wood of First Work

Recently I had the opportunity to interview Matt Wood, the Executive Director of First Work, about the dimensions of the problems related to the youth labour market in Ontario. First Work is an umbrella organization of youth employment centres across Ontario that assist young people in gaining entry into the labour market. What resulted over the course of the interview was a thoroughly interesting discussion about the public policy construction relating to youth at the federal and provincial levels, the ongoing changes to our economy, and what solutions might be possible. 

AL: Historically recessions have hit young people in Canada very hard over the past four decades. What has been the fallout from this most recent recession on the youth labour market in Ontario and what's your prognosis for the youth labour market if we slip back into a recessionary economy?

MW: In general we’ve seen unemployment hit youth hard this recession and the recovery has offered little relief. The recessions’ impact has been felt very different across Canada according to our national research – out east we’ve seen little change from constant struggle, out west we’ve seen wilder fluctuations from extreme booms to extreme busts, and in Ontario we’ve seen a big hit to manufacturing in particular. So the labour markets are very local in character. This is something some youth can take advantage of, given their typically higher mobility than adults. But more youth are willing to work and compete for seasonal and survival jobs so the prospects for youth are bleaker in that sense.

AL: Presently what do feel are the greatest challenges facing youth entering the labour market in Ontario?

MW: First, it is getting increasingly hard to navigate a career path, by which I mean piecing together jobs that build on your formal education in a field you desire to work in. Increased competition due to more candidates and fewer opportunities due to austerity and slower economic growth are the causes there. Second, the reduction in good entry-level, lower skilled opportunities. The hollowing out of manufacturing has put many people back onto the unemployment lines. This has increased demand for training and has eliminated many higher-paying lower-skill jobs. Whereas factory workers may have made $40/hour they are more likely to get $25/hour now – and there are fewer of these opportunities.

AL: The Labour Market Development Agreement ("LMDA") is the main governing document that outlines shared public policy between the Federal and Ontario governments vis-a-vis the labour market. Last year there was a consolidation of some government initiatives aimed at encouraging labour market participation which resulted in a all-ages approach which resulted in quite a bit of criticism recently. Can you explain how the all-ages approach impacted on organizations providing employment services to youth and how this policy decision negatively impacts youth looking for work?

MW: The decision to consolidate services (i.e. reduce the number of organizations delivering Employment Ontario services and favor larger organizations over smaller ones) was informed by some multi-jurisdictional research conducted by KPMG (and supported in part by ourselves). The consolidation was not a necessary element of the LMDA, but rather was an operational decision Ontario made on its own. And this consolidation is not complete, by the way, with 83 employment agencies still living with “on-hold” status – meaning they may not be given long-term agreements with the province once the chips are down.

The all-ages approach, which was also new, caught many of us by surprise. Although I’m sure the province would argue it is somehow based on evidence, the evidence base for all these decisions is very very weak, and goes against most common perspectives in the field. Integrating ‘at-risk’ youth and adults in an educational setting is unheard of. Integrating ‘at-risk’ youth and adults in an employment centre makes as little sense.

We work very closely with government and had informed them on several occasions of our finding that 35% fewer youth were taking advantage of employment services. We have proposed program changes to make employment services more attractive, relevant and ‘friendly’ to youth. The press coverage we received seems to have generated more interest in our message. I have yet to see government statistics that refute our findings, and I am genuinely concerned the government is not measuring the impacts of the program changes appropriately.

I have to take a moment and say that the McGuinty government has made many important and valuable investments in youth. These include the Learning to 18 agenda and several increased investments in summer job programs. There are also ongoing conversations with a coalition called Ontario Youth Matter that may result in action (although time will tell). The Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities has inadvertently shifted its attention away from youth – and I think on this score the Ministry is an outlier among other Ministries.

AL: Youth in Ontario are not a homogeneous group and display a stunning amount of diversity. In your experience are there any specific segments of the youth population in Ontario who are being left behind through the implementation of the LMDA?

MW: We talk about marginalized youth, meaning those who are living at the margins of mainstream society or ‘at-risk’ youth, those who are at risk of falling into lives of poverty or anti-social behaviour. These groups have certainly lost out in the program changes at Employment Ontario for two reasons. First, the ongoing squeeze on funding, and the increase in red tape, has hampered agencies’ ability to find and recruit these youth. These folks are not as easily attracted to use social services as adults are, and the increase in adults has meant an increase in the need to serve them, again with increased red tape. Second, youth employment programs are successful with significant funding put toward employment placement – the money that pays a portion of the wage for an employer to hire a young person that they otherwise would not hire. The amount of money for employment placement is significantly lower than in the past.

One of the provinces investments in summer jobs (the Summer Jobs for Youth program of the Ministry of Children and Youth Services) have targeted marginalized youth very well. This program impacts only the summer and only 15 communities across Ontario so it does not have the scope of the Employment Ontario program of MTCU.

AL: What was the motivation of the Federal and Ontario governments to move toward the LMDA's all-ages approach and was the current situation facing youth in the labour market properly considered in the formulation of this policy?

MW: There has always been minor tension between the Federal Government and Ontario over youth employment, since federal government has informally reserved youth employment programs as their bailiwick through their Youth Employment Strategy while the Province has been operating its Job Connect (and earlier) programs for fifteen years prior to the LMDA. Job Connect was the Provinces employment program that focused heavily on marginalized youth, was genuinely results-based, was implemented very consistently across the Province and built a long-term and highly effective community of practice among practitioners.

As mentioned, the all-ages approach was an operational decision made by Ontario but who knows what might have been discussed behind closed doors to try to reinforce the federal reserve of youth employment. There’s nothing in the LMDA text precluding the delivery of services to youth or other specialized client groups.

The Province would argue that their post-LMDA programs allow for adjustment to local labour market conditions and that the local agencies delivering the program are responsible to accomplish this. This is technically true, but the lack of funds and the burden of paperwork have made serving marginalized youth an unaffordable luxury for Employment Ontario agencies.

AL: Given the high youth employment rate it's clear that more needs to be done on the part of government. What policy tools might be effective in reducing the youth unemployment rate? 

MW: It is important to conceive of the school to work transition as being the important time for intervention. In todays context of rapidly changing labour market prospects, an emphasis on local flexibility and responsiveness is crucial, as is an emphasis on partnerships with employers. I envision a long-term (10 – 15 year) program that follows youth through their personal transition, supporting them with career, training, entrepreneurship and unemployment bridging support until they establish themselves and attain a certain level of independence and security.