Durham College has reversed its long-standing opposition to public-private partnerships (PPP) and announced a joint venture with an as yet unnamed private career college in Toronto. This partnership aims to ultimately enrol 3,000 international students in four diploma programs and four graduate certificates.
Until this announcement, DC was one of only six Ontario Colleges that had not yet entered into a PPP in an effort to combat domestic enrolment challenges and chronic underfunding by the province. OPSEU certainly agrees with the underfunding problem, but these partnerships also raise serious concerns around exploitation of international students as identified by Ontario’s Auditor General and the media. As a local, we also have concerns about the impact that this PPP may have on you, our members.
Local 354 President Phil Raby and Vice-President Mike Keith were given an opportunity to hear the announcement early this week and ask questions of Vice-President of Academic, Elaine Popp, and Associate Vice-President of HR and Equity, Jennifer Cosway. During that conversation, the following assurances and statements were made:
- the private partner has not been named, but the campus will be located in the Yonge St. and Eglinton Ave. area of Toronto
- some support staff hiring will occur to support administration and financial functions
- no full-time faculty from the Oshawa or Whitby campuses will be employed there
- faculty for the PPP campus will be hired privately and will not be members of our local nor paid according to our collective agreement.
- the same Durham College policies we operate under will be in place at the private campus
- management stated there is no anticipated impact to domestic or international enrolment at the Oshawa and Whitby campuses
- only international students are expected to enrol at the Toronto campus
- the programming offered in Toronto will be taken from the current offerings at the college, as detailed in the college’s announcement
- a ramp-up is expected with only some of the eight programs and certificates being available at start-up
- the campus could open as early as May, 2024, but there are still a number of approvals to attain both with the DC Board of Governors and the province
- the campus will offer three intakes each year and operate year round
- students graduating will receive the same Durham College credential and parchment as students at the public campuses
The Local has reached out to our Divisional Executive (DivEx) for further guidance, as well as other college locals where such PPPs already exist. The early reports from other locals is that there has been little impact on the public campuses overall, but that intellectual property concerns have been noted.
In some cases, faculty at one college were asked to mentor or “share samples” of their work with the private campus instructors, which the union does not support. At another college, instructors noticed the names of private faculty appearing in their older course shells.
The union understands management’s rights to material created for our courses while in their employ, but we do believe there are limits to those rights and members are encouraged to protect materials that they feel are not subject to those rights. The local has offered a number of presentations on intellectual property in the past year, but feel free to reach out to a steward if you have concerns or questions about your content.