Today, OCUFA released new poll findings on public attitudes towards higher education and austerity in Ontario’s Ottawa region. Presented at a news conference at the University of Ottawa, the results indicate that Eastern Ontarians do not want the government’s deficit-cutting agenda to compromise the quality of university education in Ontario.
Other key findings include:
- 72 per cent of Ottawa region residents oppose cuts to university funding
- 74 per cent oppose shifting the cost of higher education onto students and their families through higher tuition fees
- 57 per cent believe that a university funding freeze by government would harm the quality of higher education in the province.
Ottawa region residents also support the rights of professors and academic librarians to bargain their contracts free from government interference, with 62 per cent in favour of free negotiations. Ontarians also reject taking away collective bargaining rights of public sector workers to meet deficit-reduction goals, with 48 per cent opposed and only 33 per cent in favour.
The OCUFA study was conducted December 10th and 14th, 2012 and received 1,518 responses, with 301 in the Ottawa region. The margin of error is +/- 4.9 per cent at the 95 per cent confidence interval for the Ottawa region sample. Read the full results.