Youth Detention Facility Grand Opening
It's time to fix our broken education system
Diane Francis: Canadians hand as much money toward education as any country, as a percentage of GDP, but we continue to have high youth unemployment and the need to import skilled workers. This is about misallocation of education dollars
Ottawa is trying to fix its broken immigration system, but the provinces must fix their broken education systems, too.
Canadians hand as much money toward education as any country, as a percentage of GDP, but we continue to have high youth unemployment and the need to import skilled workers.
This is about misallocation of education dollars.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS EDUCATION IN CANADA IS CURRENTLY BLEEDING.
Ontario, for instance, allocates billions to providing full-day kindergarten and neglects to encourage and expand skills training or apprenticeships at the secondary level. Quebec’s educators are more concerned about what language students learn than about teaching skills needed across the country.
Canada’s universities race to recruit foreign students, but the public benefit is not served because these students occupy places and use tax dollars intended for Canadian students. Worse yet, they usually go home, or to the U.S., without contributing a dime in taxes to Canada. (Foreign students pay higher tuition than Canadian students do, which benefits the institution, but this doesn’t cover all costs and taxpayers subsidize the rest.)
There is also an over-emphasis on university degrees (including useless ones). Kids are stuck with huge student loans because they can take anything they wish including degrees that don’t lead to jobs. The result is that university graduates fill some community colleges, nearly 50% in Toronto, to learn employable skills.
Frankly, I believe that all kids should learn a skill first then go to university, not the other way around, unless they are going to pursue a sought-after degree.
Looking around the world, Germany has the best education system. Half of its secondary school students are streamed into trade or technology courses that prepare them to be hired right out of school. On the job, they are paid to learn more until they become full-fledged masters.
The result of this structured, disciplined educational system is that Germany exports as much as China, without paying slave-wages. This also avoids social problems. Among the world’s biggest economies, Germany has the lowest youth unemployment by far, at 7.7%. France’s is 25%, Spain’s 35%, the US 18%. Austria, Switzerland and Denmark also have low youth unemployment because of the same apprenticeship system.
In Canada, youth unemployment is officially 12.6%, or one out of eight. But in some parts of the country – notably Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal – it is 18%.
Meanwhile, Alberta and Saskatchewan and mining regions are begging for welders, laborers, engineer-technologists, machinery operators and many other skilled tradesmen.
The mismatch — inappropriately educated kids in big cities and jobs that only foreigners can fill — is not simply the fault of a lousy immigration system, but also of the educational system.
Provinces should copy the German dual education system. Apprentices spend up to 70% of their time on the job and the rest in formal education for five to seven years after leaving formal school. These schemes also apply to professionals, such as certain types of engineers.
Community colleges try to fill this niche in Canada, but more emphasis, and money should be given to their efforts. The federal government provides grants, not repayable loans, toward apprenticeship training, but this should be dramatically expanded. The government must continue to break down interprovincial barriers for workers so that credentials are recognized by all jurisdictions and workers can fill jobs. The need is great and hundreds of thousands of skilled workers will be needed in the next few years.
Here is how the money is allocated now:
In 2009, more than 270,000 apprentices were registered in the so-called Red Seal trades, mostly construction tradesmen. This number represented 81% of all apprentices registered in Canada so the total number of apprentices was 321,300 that year.
There are 900,000 students enrolled in community colleges in Canada learning more practical skills.
But there are 1.2 million students enrolled in universities in Canada.
Of this, 90,000 full-time and 13,000 part-time foreign students were enrolled in Canadian universities in 2010. This represents one in 12 students at the undergraduate level and one in five at the graduate level.
At the same time, Canada granted 150,000 visas to specialized workers last year despite high unemployment, and high immigration, in its major cities.
Frankly, it does not require a university degree to realize what’s wrong here and what should happen in Canada.
Governments must allocate money to institutions that provide the skilled workers and professionals the economy requires and less money to foreign students and to anyone earning any degree
Canada’s universities race to recruit foreign students, but the public benefit is not served because these students occupy places and use tax dollars intended for Canadian students. Worse yet, they usually go home, or to the U.S., without contributing a dime in taxes to Canada. (Foreign students pay higher tuition than Canadian students do, which benefits the institution, but this doesn’t cover all costs and taxpayers subsidize the rest.)
There is also an over-emphasis on university degrees (including useless ones). Kids are stuck with huge student loans because they can take anything they wish including degrees that don’t lead to jobs. The result is that university graduates fill some community colleges, nearly 50% in Toronto, to learn employable skills.
Frankly, I believe that all kids should learn a skill first then go to university, not the other way around, unless they are going to pursue a sought-after degree.
Looking around the world, Germany has the best education system. Half of its secondary school students are streamed into trade or technology courses that prepare them to be hired right out of school. On the job, they are paid to learn more until they become full-fledged masters.
The result of this structured, disciplined educational system is that Germany exports as much as China, without paying slave-wages. This also avoids social problems. Among the world’s biggest economies, Germany has the lowest youth unemployment by far, at 7.7%. France’s is 25%, Spain’s 35%, the US 18%. Austria, Switzerland and Denmark also have low youth unemployment because of the same apprenticeship system.
In Canada, youth unemployment is officially 12.6%, or one out of eight. But in some parts of the country – notably Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal – it is 18%.
Meanwhile, Alberta and Saskatchewan and mining regions are begging for welders, laborers, engineer-technologists, machinery operators and many other skilled tradesmen.
The mismatch — inappropriately educated kids in big cities and jobs that only foreigners can fill — is not simply the fault of a lousy immigration system, but also of the educational system.
Provinces should copy the German dual education system. Apprentices spend up to 70% of their time on the job and the rest in formal education for five to seven years after leaving formal school. These schemes also apply to professionals, such as certain types of engineers.
Community colleges try to fill this niche in Canada, but more emphasis, and money should be given to their efforts. The federal government provides grants, not repayable loans, toward apprenticeship training, but this should be dramatically expanded. The government must continue to break down interprovincial barriers for workers so that credentials are recognized by all jurisdictions and workers can fill jobs. The need is great and hundreds of thousands of skilled workers will be needed in the next few years.
Here is how the money is allocated now:
In 2009, more than 270,000 apprentices were registered in the so-called Red Seal trades, mostly construction tradesmen. This number represented 81% of all apprentices registered in Canada so the total number of apprentices was 321,300 that year.
There are 900,000 students enrolled in community colleges in Canada learning more practical skills.
But there are 1.2 million students enrolled in universities in Canada.
Of this, 90,000 full-time and 13,000 part-time foreign students were enrolled in Canadian universities in 2010. This represents one in 12 students at the undergraduate level and one in five at the graduate level.
At the same time, Canada granted 150,000 visas to specialized workers last year despite high unemployment, and high immigration, in its major cities.
Frankly, it does not require a university degree to realize what’s wrong here and what should happen in Canada.
Governments must allocate money to institutions that provide the skilled workers and professionals the economy requires and less money to foreign students and to anyone earning any degree
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