Education and the economy

I happened across an interesting story in the Calgary Herald the other day featuring PEI Senator Elizabeth Hubley who has said that Canada should provide tuition-free post-secondary education. Hubley makes the point that since the economy requires Highly Skilled and Qualified People we should be providing free education since a high school diploma is no longer the terminal standard it once was:

"As a society, we long ago decided to provide education through high school because it was the bare minimum needed to function in a modern economy," Hubley, a former provincial politician, said in a recent speech in the Senate. "But things have changed and a high-school diploma is no longer enough. If the bare minimum now is a post-secondary education, it should also be tuition-free."

This is a potentially good link into the productivity discussion that have been ongoing in Canada of late. Perhaps providing education to the post-secondary level is one facet of ensuring our productivity index can climb in conjunction with the Science and Technology Strategy.