The Effect of Privatization on Programming for Women

    C.J.S. was introduced two years ago. Most educators took more than a year to fully understand it and only now are they beginning to see changes in funding levels and sources, method of delivery, and types of programs offered both inside and outside the post-secondary educational system.

     During the past three years, the federal government's overall spending has increased while funding for labor adjustment and training programs has been reduced from $2.1 billion to less than $1.7 billion. Furthermore, the government is not spending what is allocated. For example, one-quarter of the 1985-86 Ontario C.J.S. budget was not spent.(3) This is particularly alarming at a time when the government is entering into a free trade agreement with the U.S. which could involve massive retraining as some industries flounder and others spring up.

    Not only have overall funds been dramatically reduced, but spending priorities have changed. The public college system has been a victim. By 1989 most colleges in Canada will have experienced an up to 50 per cent cut-back in direct federal purchases of training. Instead, dollars are flowing to business, industry, private consultants, and training organizations.

    The federal government's direct purchase of training seats in Ontario's college-based bridging programs dropped by over 40 per cent from 1985 to 1987. In Toronto, close to 40 college courses had been cancelled by August, 1987. In British Columbia, vocational training seats have been reduced by over 30 per cent since 1985.

     In its review of the first 18 months of C.J.S., Employment and Immigration Canada claims that the shift to the private sector has not been radical.(4) However, their own figures show that 40 per cent of all participants are now being trained by the for-profit sector, and this proportion will grow as the public educational system is cut back.

    Under C.J.S., the Ontario job-entry program had funded 161 projects by June 1986. Only nine per cent were managed by a college; 61 per cent were managed by profit-making trainers or private vocational schools and 16 per cent by not-profit community groups. In Metropolitan Toronto, nearly 70 per cent were administered by profit-making firms.

     A major bank in Toronto, for example, received $45,650.00 to train 60 women as clerks and tellers. An international personnel agency was awarded $149,300.00 to coordinate the training of 40 women in secretarial and word processing skills. A private consultant was granted $184,485.00 to train 60 women as office workers and health-care aides.

The Proportion of Women Trained by Employers

A 1985 study, "One In Every Five," revealed that fewer women than men, enrolled in job-related adult education courses, had their tuition paid by their employers. (5) Fifty-six per cent of men's costs were subsidized compared to 44 per cent of women's. In the blue-collar field, the discrepancy is even more marked: 59 per cent for men - 36 per cent for women.

    This survey also documents that undereducated women have virtually no opportunity to receive employer-sponsored training. Only two per cent of the 20 per cent of Canadian women with eight years or less formal education participated in a course to improve their job opportunities.

     "Training Women in the Workplace," recently produced by the Ontario Ministry of Skills Development, reveals that less skilled and clerical occupations receive less on-the-job training than do managerial, professional and blue-collar occupations, that employers are less likely to provide women with longer-term training for more skilled occupations;(6), and finally, that women comprise only five per cent of apprenticeship trainees (employer-based training), and these are primarily in hairstyling and cooking. The survey concluded that women may be less likely than men to be offered retraining opportunities in areas most important to the employer. The Economic Council of Canada estimates that 12 per cent of the wage gap between men and women is directly attributable to differences in the length of on-the-job training.(7)

     Under the Canadian Jobs Strategy, women's participation rate is high in programs such as Job Re-entry and Job Development, but low in two employer-based programs, Skills Investment (30.8 per cent) and Skills Shortages (10.3 per cent).

    Under SEED, the federal summer student program, only 35.4 per cent of the trainees hired by private-sector employers were women, compared to 63.5 per cent by non-profit sponsors.(8) These facts are disturbing because more than two-thirds of those who enter the work force over the next ten years are expected to be adult women.



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