What we find is that the education system is badly out of sync with women's educational needs. This is graphically illustrated in some of the following statistics. In 1982, of all women graduating from Canadian universities, fewer than 3% had degrees in engineering, computer sciences or really in any of the sciences whatsoever. In 1981-1982, enrolments in high-tech courses at community colleges right across this country were 95% male and less than 5% female.

The problem is accessibility of these types of courses for the future to women. McGill University in Montreal during the 1960s was .virtually inaccessible to Quebecois learners because of the language and many cultural barriers. So many of the math and science programs are inhospitable to women because of the way courses are taught and because of the culture associated with them.

Another accessibility problem: Part-time learners are the growth students group of the 1980s. By the year 2000 at the rate part-time learners are be- coming a major factor on the campus, it has been estimated that over half the students at colleges and universities will be part-time students. Today the majority of part-time students happen to be women. It has been found that women are making career decisions at about the age of 30 and that is when they are going back, but again, having to content themselves with what is available on a part-time basis.

The problem they face is that many courses and programs are not accessible to the part-time learner. To give you one illustration, the University of Waterloo has an excellent course in introduction to computers which they would love to make available to all part-time students, to all students who are trying to get the applied computing aspect to add to whatever is their educational area, be it architecture, urban planning, nutrition or whatever. Unfortunately, due to budget restrictions, due to the fact that we have seen year after year a hold on educational spending, they are unable to provide that course to anybody except students enrolled full-time in the computer sciences program. This means, then, it is inaccessible to the kind of people we are talking about.

Neither are the Canada Manpower programs as accessible as they should be. Although women are 40% of workers, in 1982-1983 they were down to 26% of programming... i.e., seats allocated for training - and of course, this was a direct reflection of the fact that, through the National Training Act, this education has been targeted to the so-called nationally designated occupations. They just happen to be seen as very male and they happen to be very male dominated, without special measures to ensure that this type of training is accessible to women. Therefore, you end up contributing to and being an accomplice to discrimination against women in the field of education.

The point here is not necessarily that women are not getting a fair share of the appropriate educational resources for the 1980s. The point is that the educational resources are inadequate and are out of sync with the educational needs of the emerging labour force.

Another point to make about part-time learners is that part-time learners pay higher tuition fees because the provinces do not allocate sufficient funds for part-time learners in the way they do for full-time learners. Generally, part-time students do not qualify for student loans; yet as we said at the outset, until such time as we do get paid educational leave in this country - which so badly needs such an educational policy - Canadians trying to adapt to the computer age are having to get their education on a part-time basis and at night, yet with the program offering, such as basket weaving, wall-papering and wine making, geared to the hobbyist or to redundant skills and knowledge.