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Ethical Voices

Responses to Dr. J. Collin Dodd's article, Cross Country Mobility of Graduates - Economic and Ethical Dilemmas

Thanks to Dr. Dodds for expressing views on student mobility, spurred by the tax credit offer from Manitoba.

I have often pondered the relationships among the many stakeholders in the educational process. What obligations and expectations are there, and whose well being are we interested in anyway?

From the perspective of the learner (the consumer of educational services), I have gradually come to believe that the purest motivation springs from an innate curiosity inhabiting our soul. Learning under those circumstances produces the most lasting and satisfying effects.

Parents may have a different perspective. They may see learning as a necessary step for their children toward finding a place in the community, however that community is defined. The choice the parent helps children make can have a profound effect on their future happiness.

Government leaders seem concerned with a whole host of issues related to the well being of their jurisdiction. They battle with finding the balance between costs and benefits of various approaches to creating educational opportunities for parents and their children.

Of course, there are the teachers and institutions that have been created to deliver educational services. Their task is to develop strategies and tactics appealing to all the other stakeholders, and to deliver results.

We question who has the responsibility to establish and pay for educational services, and therefore who has the right to benefit from them.

To answer that question, we have to have some common understanding of what we mean by individual freedom and community responsibility.

I donwt think that common understanding exists. Some will argue that a student should be free to pursue his or her personal goals no matter where that journey takes them. In that case, offering incentives by one jurisdiction or another simply uses the free market system to provide incentives to help the student make a difficult choice. If this system works to attract businesses, why can't it work to attract people as well?

On the other side of the coin stand the interests of parents, government, and community. If we see the student as part of a bigger whole, indivisible from the community, we may conclude that the student's goals are subordinate to the community's goals. Ironically, as you say, the smaller communities (businesses, towns, cities) find themselves competing for talent with other small communities.

I agree with you that a common understanding on this issue is needed. "Brain drain" has been a problem for many decades now, especially if we see ourselves as part of a small community competing among others for this resource or any others, for that matter.

I have little hope for finding a solution to this dilemma within our competitive free market system. Perhaps it is time to reframe the issue.

I think education is a gift we pass to our children, not an investment from which we can expect a return. Through education of others we are projecting ourselves into the future of our world in a way that no physical edifice could ever do. It is what we are meant to do.

If we look at the issue from that perspective, do we come to a different conclusion about how our educational institutions should be funded, and how mobile our students can be?

Phil Clay
Porters Lake, Nova Scotia

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CCEPA welcomes and encourages public participation in the Ethical Voices forum. To submit an article for posting, please contact chris.stover@ccepa.ca.