JAHANGIRNAGAR

UNIVERSITY

Assignment-5

A Case Study on Ontario’s Faculty Shortage Crisis

Human Resource Planning and Policy

HRM:501

Submitted To:
Md. Alamgir Hossen
Assistant professor
Institute of Business Administration (IBA-JU), Jahangirnagar University

Submitted By:
Moushumi Priyangka
I.D# 2017 02 005
Program: WMBA
Institute of Business Administration (IBA-JU), Jahangirnagar University

Date of submission: 22.10.2020

The factors that causes supply deficit among Ontario’s university
faculty:

Reducing of student faculty ratio: Ontario universities were facing a dire

shortage in the supply of professorial talent and needed to hire 15 300 new
faculty by the year 2010 in order to keep pace with enrollment growth and
retiring faculty members, and to reduce Ontario's student-to-faculty ratio to
the Canadian national average.

Retirement of baby-boomer faculties: More than one-third of all Ontario

faculty members were currently between 55 and 64 years of age, and they will
be retiring over the next few years which lead to a huge shortage of efficient
faculty.

Increase in enrollments: Universities are facing a substantial increase in

enrollments because of the demographic increase in the echo generation
students (18 to 24 years of age) entering university. In total, this represents
5500 additional professors who have to be hired.

The impact of secondary school reform: Further adding to the problem was
the impact of secondary school reform ("the double cohort"), which saw as
many as 33 500 additional students seeking access to universities over the next
two years.

Changing workforce requirements: Changing workforce requirements and the

need for "lifelong learning" to secure and retain meaningful employment in a
knowledge-based economy had led students to demand university courses
that could be taken over an extended period of time (i.e., they never really
leave university) in order to keep their knowledge and skills relevant in an
extremely dynamic environment.

University’s budgetary problems: The fact that university administrators had

been addressing their budgetary problems (and associated reductions in
provincial government funding) by reducing the number of full-time faculty
members.
Relying on part-time course directors: Universities nowadays are often relying
on part-time course directors to curtail their cost. These individuals often had
part-time jobs at several educational institutions or alternatively work full-time
in other jobs and lectured on the side, but they were not full-time employees
of the universities.

Low pay scales: Furthermore, the relatively low pay scales offered to university
faculty, as compared to people with equivalent qualifications in private
industry or in other public institutions, further diminished the available pool of
potential faculty members.

Recommendations for preventing the situation:

Strong recruitment & retention policy: Ontario’s universities should impose

strong recruitment and retention policies to overcome the issues, so that it will
attract the professional talents more.

Need effective and efficient demand & supply forecasting: To predict future
demand and supply of faculty, and student to faculty ratio, the universities
have to forecast long term demand & supply accurately.
Such as, using Markov Model to forecasting supply as it is more accurate than
regression model, and widely used in educational and personnel planning.

Free training and development programs: The Ontario govt. should provide
free training and development programs for the educational professionals, so
that more individuals will involve to this sector, and it will lead an increase of
professional talents and help to reduce shortage of efficient faculties.

Increase pay scales of university faculty members: Research found that

salaries favored employment outside universities, as the average salary of
university professors was $78,001, whereas comparable jobs in the public
sector paid $84,100, and salaries were a full one-third higher in the private
sector at $103,900. Thus, it is necessary to raise pay scales of professors for
equivalent the jobs.
Increase university administrative budget: It is found that, university students,
who had seen their average tuition fees rise by 60% over the previous five
years, were now facing a reduced number of course options, crowded
classrooms, reductions in services and contacts with professors, and a
decreased quality of education. So, universities should increase their
administrative budget to balance the rising fees and quality of education.

Well-designed succession planning: As the baby-boomers faculties are now in

time of their retirement, a well designed succession planning is needed for the
universities, so that, there will not be any shortage of professors after their
retirement.

Offering the graduated students to be the faculty member: To reduce the

shortage of faculty member, university can offer from their high scoring
graduated student to be the member of the university faculty, and university
can provide them training facilities for this purpose to ensure their efficiency.
Steps that should be taken by the various stakeholder groups to rectify this
supply crisis:

Stakeholder groups

 Developing new policies to improve

educational sector.
Government  Providing free training & development
programs for university professionals.
 Funding for university HR practices.
 Tax deduction for educational sector.

 Imposing strong recruitment and retention

Universities policies for faculties.
( HR and Administration)  Forecasting demand & supply accurately for
professional talents.
 Sufficient training & equipment facilities.
Administration
(Policy makers of  Well-designed succession planning for this
educational sector) profession.
 Career management.
 Equivalent compensation management to
other private or public jobs.
 Student can support faculty members by
providing feedback of their work.
 Student’s support & participation can
Students motivate the faculty members for retaining in
the university.
 Students may also can be a part of the faculty
members if they have the required
competencies.
Parents
(Parents of students &  Parents can motivate their children in
society) teaching profession.
 The more individuals would interested in
teaching professions if there is the more
opportunities of this occupation in society.