Higher Education in Federal Systems

Alexander D. Gregor is Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at the
University of Manitoba.

This book (available in both English and French) comprises the
proceedings of an international colloquium held at Queen’s University
in May 1991. The colloquium itself reflected an unusual level of
collaboration, being jointly sponsored by two levels of government (the
Department of the Secretary of State and the Council of Ministers of
Education, Canada) and a partnership of anglophone and francophone
institutions (Queen’s and the Йcole nationale d’administration
publique). Participation in the colloquium was by invitation, and
involved administrators, elected and appointed government officials, and
scholars from seven federal systems: Australia, Canada, Belgium, the
European Community, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States.
Background papers were prepared on the relationship between federalism
and higher education in each of those systems, as well as on the broader
issues related to federalism per se. Among the topics covered in each of
the papers were organization, management and planning, financing,
student mobility, and research planning and financing.

The conference was a particularly timely one for Canada, occurring as
it did in the midst of the most recent constitutional debates. In the
view of the organizers, an examination of common problems encountered in
allowing federal systems to deal with the increasingly urgent needs of
higher education was not only a valid scholarly exercise in its own
right, it was also something that might well offer, in a comparative
context, important policy insights and options to that current debate.

Completing the books is a digest of the discussion, along with an
insightful synopsis offered by the conference rapporteur, J. Stefan
Dupré. The tenor of that delightful conclusion is suggested by its
title: “Hasty Generalizations, Missed Opportunities and
Oversimplifications: Overcoming the Obstacles to Understanding Higher
Education (Whatever That Is) in Federal Systems (Whatever They May
Be).” Both Dupré and the discussants came to the conclusion that the
only generalization to emerge from this comparative study was the almost
universal failure of attempts by federal systems at rationalized
co-ordination. In terms of the literature on higher education,
comparative studies, and federalism, however, the colloquium and the
proceedings make a significant and welcome contribution.