Summary
Alberta has 21 publicly funded post-secondary institutions, such as universities, colleges and technical institutes. in 2002 the government created Campus Alberta – A Police Framework, designed to formalize and encourage initiatives among post-secondary institutions.
Objective and Scope
We performed an audit in 2013 to determine is the Department of Advanced Education and public post-secondary institutions had adequate systems to plan, govern, implement and sustain the collaborative initiatives among Alberta’s institutions.
Conclusion
In this follow-up audit, we concluded that the Department of Advanced Education has not implemented our recommendations to work with institutions to:
- develop and communicate a strategic plan that clearly defines:
- the minister’s expected outcomes for Campus Alberta
- initiatives required to achieve those outcomes
- resources and funding needed to carry out the strategic plan
- develop relevant performance measures and targets to assess if the outcomes are being achieved.
- publicly report results and the cost of achieving them
- review and clarify that accountability structures for governing collaborative initiatives
- develop processes and guidance on how to plan, implement and govern collaborative initiatives
Collaboration allows post-secondary institutions to share costs, resources and best practices. Alberta’s students are not getting the full benefits of collaboration because the department still has no plan for how institutions should work together.