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Thanks for providing the source of your "statistic" Bob. I realized when I consulted it, that my quarrel, such as it is, is with the Boyer Commission rather than with you. They quote the OECD Indicator for 1995 (the source by the way is Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators 1997) and describe it variously in the table as "university education rates," "percentage of the population that enters college or university," and "net entry to university/college education." In the text they say "half of the high school graduates in the United States now gain some experience in colleges and universities." The impression is given that half of all high school graduates in the States leave high school and enter university/college. In fact this OECD Indicator "estimates the percentage of today's school leavers who will enter university level education during the course of their lives assuming current university enrolment rates" (Education at a Glance, p. 159). Rather than indicating a widely democratic educational system, in Canada and the United States where rates are high, this indicator may show a large number of adults taking courses because there are no jobs for them and the universities are the only route for job mobility. In fact, in Canada, a considerable number of entrants are part-time. In 1994-95 about a third of all undergraduates were part time students (246,760 part time students, 502,659 full time--Statistics Canada, Education in Canada 1996). It is also noted on page 160 of Education at a Glance, 1997 that entry rates may be lower in Continental Europe because a solid basis for work is provided by vocational and apprenticeship programs, reducing the perceived need for tertiary-level studies. My only point here is that we have an elite system of post-secondary education in Canada despite the high participation rates. Getting back to what we were talking about, what this means about the need for Rhetoric and Composition courses I'm not sure! But the lack of such courses in Canada is not the result of a failure to respond to a more "democratic" era in university education. Laura Atkinson [log in to unmask]