Mark Francis, a graduate from the electrical foundation dual credit program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology.Scott McAlpine/British Columbia Institute of Technology
With today’s increased cost of living and an uncertain job market only made worse by the ongoing pandemic – particularly for young people – employability is a key driver behind a student’s choice for postsecondary education.
According to Statistics Canada, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a 6-per-cent increase in unemployment rates for young people aged 15 to 30 from 2019 to 2020, “roughly twice the increase observed among older Canadians.”
But Canada’s colleges are listening and responding to the demand from students to be job-ready upon graduation.
“In our high-school partnerships we are certainly seeing particular attention being paid to planning for future work,” says James Rout, associate vice-president of education support and innovation at British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) based in Burnaby, B.C. As a result, schools are paying even more attention to ways to get young people transitioned into postsecondary education and ready for the job market.
Programs in health care, technology and the trades continue to attract students at high rates because there are plenty of jobs available upon completion of these programs. Dual credit offerings are also an attractive option for students as they are able to gain both high school and postsecondary credits concurrently and, in some cases, be employable before they even get to college.
Perhaps the biggest shift in the past couple of decades has been the focus on the “try before you buy” approach to choosing a career. Many high-school students select their career path based on what they think they might like to do for future work, but the reality can be quite different when the training begins.
To avoid any surprises, many colleges have programs where students can test drive aspects of a career before they commit, Mr. Rout explains.
At BCIT, the pre-health program was designed to help senior-level secondary students who showed interest in the health sciences narrow down the choices of career and figure out which pathway to follow, “because so many young people don’t realize how many careers there are in the health care system.”
Many colleges have dual credit programs, which are typically available in the trades, but have expanded well beyond that scope to include programs from health care to early childhood education.
Dual credit programs allow senior high school students to gain credits toward secondary school graduation while also earning credits in a postsecondary academic course, vocational program, or trade or apprenticeship.
At College of the Rockies in Cranbrook, B.C., the coming Child, Youth and Family Studies program will launch in February, 2022. It will allow high-school students in certain districts who are interested in a career in early childhood education (ECE) to get a jump on their career goals. For their work, these students will earn 16 high-school credits, as well as 13 postsecondary credits applicable toward three different potential career pathways within the college.
But the kicker is that they will be qualified – and therefore employable – right after high school, explains Robin Hicks, vice-president of academic and applied research at College of the Rockies.”
Upon completion, the students will be qualified to work as early childhood education assistants,” Ms. Hicks says. “So they’re employable right at the end of high school and that’s [a profession] in high demand, as we’re hearing from employers that they are seeking ECE staff, and it’s a way to get them in the door.”
It’s not just the job prospects, explains Jackie Taylor, community learning campus director at Chinook’s Edge School Division and Olds College, in Olds, Ata.
By giving high-school students the chance to experience a postsecondary setting, there is less likelihood they’ll drop out of a program because it “wasn’t what they thought it was going to be.”
“We want students to be better equipped and feel ready to make firm decisions on the career pathway they’d like to start with and then transition successfully in that first year,” Ms. Taylor says.
There’s also the emotional benefits of these programs, which allow students to get a taste of what they’re in for in a postsecondary environment.
“It is the real thing,” explains Ms. Taylor. “They are doing the real courses; they have the real expectations on them, and the credit does record on the postsecondary [transcript] as well.”
It also helps alleviate “the stress and anxieties of the transition from the high-school setting into postsecondary,” she continues. “That has quite an impact on our youth. So the more we can prepare them and minimize that impact with these experiences ahead of time, the more successful that first year can be.”
Technology is as important as ever in the career market, which is why there are digital aspects to nearly every program these days, explains David Wells, vice-president of academic and applied research at Vancouver Community College.
“Over the past two years we’ve applied augmented reality to our auto collision repair programs, which allows our students to practice welding and painting in a virtual reality setting – and we’re looking at [something similar for] our culinary program right now,” he says.
Students are driving not only the demand for programs, but also the ways they want to learn. Mr. Wells says he expects, like himself, many educators and colleges will continue to listen.
”Right now we are navigating our way in a post-COVID environment and trying to understand student appetites in terms of what they are interested in, how they want to learn and what they want to learn,” he says. “And it’s truly amazing.”