Checking In with Rosanna Caira
Jul 6, 2026 · 1 hr 9 min · 10 segments
In this episode of Checking In, Rosanna Caira, editor and publisher of *Hotelier* magazine, hosts a roundtable discussion with four leading hospitality educators about the state of education across…
Bruce McAdamsGuest
Rosanna CairaHost
Rudi FischbacherGuest
Frank MenezesGuest
So I'm really thrilled that we have such important people today from the education field.
And these are tireless individuals who have really given a lot to the education field over many, many years of service.
And I think they have seen the education sector really go through a lot of changes in the past year.
We actually, at Food Service and Hospitality, we wrote a story in our May issue called Situation Critical, in which we examined the host of changes that are going through the education sector and really try to get a feeling of how it's impacting the industry, the students, obviously, first and foremost, the industry.
and restaurants and hotels through diminishing pipelines to service the industry, which is going to have incredible repercussions.
So I thought today we could start with bringing everybody up to speed on what the current state of education is in Canada today with regard to the hospitality industry.
So perhaps we can go around the table and just get everybody's observations regarding the current state of funding for education in your own institution.
So from your perspective, you can give us perhaps a broader base of what you see.
So maybe we could start with Frank is at the top of the Hollywood squares and get his perspectives and then work around.
Yeah, the current state, as you know, most of our educational institutions of higher learning are funded by the Ontario government.
And over time, that funding for different programs and colleges and universities has declined, where they've kind of made it almost mandatory that you're self-sufficient and break even, so to speak.
And with the increase in international enrollment, the colleges obviously got low-hanging fruit, easy to kind of pick on the international students triple the fees and everything else.
And when that evaporated over the last year with the changes in policies, visa policies, the funding has not necessarily increased.
And as a result, all the programs that were established because of the increase in enrollment are basically evaporating.
And so hospitality has been particularly targeted, so to speak, because, well, not so much the lack of interest from students, it's just probably more to do with not necessarily enforcing the recruitment of those students.
And so from that perspective, one final point that I'll say is not only has the colleges been reduced in funding, but they targeted increase in funding the STEM programs, but also Combined with that, OSAP has been reduced substantially.
And so not only has students been reduced in terms of funding for programs, but also the target programs have been, I guess, targeted in a way where hospitality has been left out completely.
So I'm really thrilled that we have such important people today from the education field.
And these are tireless individuals who have really given a lot to the education field over many, many years of service.
And I think they have seen the education sector really go through a lot of changes in the past year.
We actually, at Food Service and Hospitality, we wrote a story in our May issue called Situation Critical, in which we examined the host of changes that are going through the education sector and really try to get a feeling of how it's impacting the industry, the students, obviously, first and foremost, the industry.
and restaurants and hotels through diminishing pipelines to service the industry, which is going to have incredible repercussions.
So I thought today we could start with bringing everybody up to speed on what the current state of education is in Canada today with regard to the hospitality industry.
So perhaps we can go around the table and just get everybody's observations regarding the current state of funding for education in your own institution.
So from your perspective, you can give us perhaps a broader base of what you see.
So maybe we could start with Frank is at the top of the Hollywood squares and get his perspectives and then work around.
Yeah, the current state, as you know, most of our educational institutions of higher learning are funded by the Ontario government.
And over time, that funding for different programs and colleges and universities has declined, where they've kind of made it almost mandatory that you're self-sufficient and break even, so to speak.
And with the increase in international enrollment, the colleges obviously got low-hanging fruit, easy to kind of pick on the international students triple the fees and everything else.
And when that evaporated over the last year with the changes in policies, visa policies, the funding has not necessarily increased.
And as a result, all the programs that were established because of the increase in enrollment are basically evaporating.
And so hospitality has been particularly targeted, so to speak, because, well, not so much the lack of interest from students, it's just probably more to do with not necessarily enforcing the recruitment of those students.
And so from that perspective, one final point that I'll say is not only has the colleges been reduced in funding, but they targeted increase in funding the STEM programs, but also Combined with that, OSAP has been reduced substantially.
And so not only has students been reduced in terms of funding for programs, but also the target programs have been, I guess, targeted in a way where hospitality has been left out completely.
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