The provincial auditor general’s latest report chides the government and Alberta’s 26 post-secondary institutions for wasting resources in their attempt to be more efficient.
After surveying the progress of Campus Alberta which is meant to be a collaborative effort between the Ministry of Enterprise and Advanced Education and the province’s colleges and universities auditor general Merwan Saher’s found the programs to be hampered by unanimous confusion and overly complex administration.
The auditor examined three initiatives under Campus Alberta: Apply Alberta which allows students to apply to a post-secondary institution online; the Lois Hole Campus Alberta Digital Library; and the IT management control framework. All three of these are intended to provide greater access for students and allow institutions to share the cost and workload involved in operating them.
The report states: “We found institutions do not clearly understand how the Minister of Enterprise and Advanced Education wants to achieve the Campus Alberta goals.”
“Institutions risk further duplicating their efforts paying more than necessary and not effectively managing the risks resources and benefits of collaboration. For example the ITM control framework steering committee learned about six months after starting its project that another sub-committee of academic officers in the sector was also developing IT governance policies.”
The report advises institutions and government to figure out a clear set of expectations for Campus Alberta and create goals to measure success.
The provincial government has already responded referring to letters of expectation it sent to post-secondaries in April 2013 and vowing to “work with institutions and students to develop a strategic plan for Campus Alberta that clearly defines outcomes performance measures and targets.”
