Ontario is bracing for what the man in charge of higher education calls the biggest overhaul since Bill Davis launched community colleges — and he’s in a rush to get started.

Glen Murray, the minister of training, colleges and universities gave each institution until Sept. 30, just three months, to identify three goals to set it apart from the others. It’s the first controversial step toward a more specialized, even boutique approach to higher learning.

At the same time, he held unusual summer meetings with students, professors and institutions on a staggering list of proposed changes. A return to three-year BAs. An Ontario online university to compete with others like Athabasca. Year-round campuses. Tougher accreditation of programs so all first- and second-year courses in Ontario could be mixed and matched by today’s mobile students. Tests that measure what students have learned from a program — they do this in Texas — then giving more funding to programs with better scores on these “learning outcomes.”

The first report is due this fall, and many expect Murray’s first move to be an online university that can grant its own degrees, even though students and professors say it’s not needed.

“I would argue we’re about to go through a decade-long transformation bigger than any we’ve had in nearly 50 years — to modernize our education system and spend smarter,” Murray said in a recent interview.

Any move to spend less raises alarms in a province that ranks last in Canada for per-student funding.

“Ontario tuition is the highest in the country and in some cases went up 71 per cent in seven years,” said Toby Whitfield of the Canadian Federation of Students, Ontario. “So tuition and student debt need to be priority number one.”

But many welcome the notion of making credits more portable and measuring how well courses instill their curriculum.

“We’re really happy to finally see a discussion on how to improve quality,” said Rylan Kinnon, executive director of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance.

Murray himself says it’s time Ontario retools its ivory tower for a new students-without-borders world, filled with web-savvy profs like Joe Kim.

The young McMaster psychologist with 3,500 students in his first-year course has used the web to breathe life into heavy introductory lectures. He replaced two of his three weekly classes on the basics with breezy, interactive online lessons, then holds the third “live lecture” to tackle a problem together.

“Joe Kim is brilliant,” Murray said. “He realized the way we were teaching the bulk of the content — the ‘sage on the stage’ — didn’t have anything to do with how students really learn, which is through discussion, engagement and participation.”

Murray said today’s students already “shop” for the best lectures online from places such as Harvard and MIT, which offer lectures online free.

Kim is becoming the poster boy for the digital revolution Murray believes will transform post-secondary education. It’s not just that online lessons are cheaper, Murray argues, but when they are blended with live lectures in the sort of hybrid model Kim uses, they free up face-to-face time for more creative class discussion.

Kim’s online lessons help students plow through such weighty concepts by adding graphics, web links and interactive quizzes that make sure the student is understanding the material. (“Incorrect! That assumption would not fit the model of a single storage area for memories. Try again.”)

In the live class, they apply what they learned online. In one lecture, Kim asked students to work in groups to figure out why infertile couples who decide to adopt seem more likely than others to get pregnant. After combing through research on everything from stress to hormones, students discovered it simply isn’t true.

“These mystery case studies teach students which research questions to ask, and that can be the most practical use of class time,” said Kim, whose lectures draw more than 80 per cent of students, even on Fridays.

McMaster student Kristopher Brazil was skeptical when he signed up for Kim’s course two years ago, but said he soon liked learning the basics at home, without the distractions of the lecture hall. He will be a teaching assistant for Kim this year.

“I also think you get more discussion on online discussion boards than you do with students in class,” he said. “Ask a question online and 20 people answer right away.”

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But not everyone agrees Ontario should create its own online university. Higher education consultant Alex Usher warns against seeing online learning as the silver bullet for higher learning, because surveys show “what students really want from a post-secondary education experience is to meet friends and role models; the human capital formed by rubbing elbows.”

The most controversial suggestion may be to return to three-year bachelor degrees, as many European countries have done as part of a streamlined new model. It would save the province money, but professors argue three years is not long enough for students to grasp the material and know how to apply it.

“It’s often that fourth year when students get that ‘aha moment’ in their discipline,” said Constance Adamson, president of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations. “When they gain the skills to communicate and synthesize and be critical about the material they’ve learned in the first three years.”