Section Three

Costs and Use of Resources

Overview

This section examines cost questions within a framework of values about learning. There are values underlying funding decisions, and this section begins by exploring some of the basic principles of educational funding in Canada, especially funding for adult education and training. The impact of new learning technologies is considered within the context of a shifting pattern of funding for education and training.

Costs involved in new learning technologies are considered at the levels of infrastructure, educational providers, the community and the individual. Most new learning technologies depend on infrastructure developments in advanced communications systems. For educational providers, the use of learning technologies can mean changed cost structures and funding priorities: this section explores some potential outcomes of these changes. We also consider the implications of costs of the new learning technologies for individual learners particularly for women.

These, then are some of the questions considered in this section:

• Who pays for education and training in Canada?
  
  
• How has funding for adult education and training changed over recent years, and how has that affected approaches to provision?
  
  
• What are the types of costs involved in new learning technologies, at federal and provincial levels, for educational providers, for communities, for individual learners?
  
  
• How do these costs compare with costs of "old" technologies or approaches?
  
  
• What is the impact of new learning technologies on costs for the learner? What are the implications of this for women?
  
  
• How can we compare value and costs of new learning technologies with other approaches?

What this section does not provide is a complete cost picture of new learning technologies. Even If it were possible to develop such a picture, given all the variables and unknowns, it is beyond the scope of this paper to do so. Instead, this section presents some of the types of costs, in terms of money and human resources, for new learning technologies. This approach should make it easier to uncover the underlying values behind financial decisions, and their implications for women's learning.

Values and costs

One problem with considering cost questions is that it is difficult for most people to visualize large sums of money. C. N. Parkinson (of Parkinson's law)²² commented that most people cannot consider amounts larger than their personal bank balances: for this reason, it usually takes longer for a group of people to discuss the allocation of the coffee fund than to decide on a million dollar expenditure.

A suggested way of approaching cost issues is to convert them into questions about comparative values. For example, when we read that the local school board has invested $500,000 in providing computers for school administrators, we might ask how that compares with the salary of the three special education teachers who have been just declared redundant. In another example of looking at comparative values. Heather Menzies in Whose Brave New World, notes that one year's investment in information technology by the federal government would pay an annual salary of $40,000 to 90,000 people.²³ We can think about comparative values by considering what else a certain amount of money could buy, or by comparing costs with alternatives that achieve the same or similar outcomes. This is in contrast to an accounting approach, which sets up different categories for costs for equipment (usually capital costs) and costs for people (usually operating costs) an arrangement that does not readily allow for comparisons based on values.