Policy & Positions Manual
Provincial Issues - Education
Getting the Most from our Education System (2006)
BC business and industry can become, and remain, competitive only through continued investment and maintenance of the highest standards in the development of human capital. These standards must effectively meet international levels of competitiveness, reflecting the changing needs of world economic activity to keep BC business and industry competitive in the future.
The Chamber believes that the provincial education system from kindergarten to elementary, secondary and post-secondary levels must provide equal opportunity for all students to develop to the maximum of their potential. As the needs of society, and our economy change, so too, must the educational system.
It is critical to the economic future of the province that the elementary and secondary school system stress basic educational skills, at least equal to leading world standards in the prescribed criteria. The system must include critical and creative thinking, the ability to analyze, and the skill to communicate. It must also introduce students to the new educational technologies and provide means for students to become computer literate.
At present, this is not occurring for the simple reason that there is a disconnect between the curriculum and the business community. The business community has been consistent in its call for a review of the curriculum to ensure that the skills being provided to students prepare them for the world of work.
Programs such as the Conference Board of Canada’s “Employability Skills 2000+” should become a key component of the school curriculum. This program provides school children with the basic skill requirements all entrants to the workforce are expected to develop, and can further enhance as they progress through their career.
The Chamber congratulates the government on recognizing that there are challenges inherent in the school system, and on their commitment to work with stakeholder groups to address these challenges through the creation of the Learning Roundtable. Having said this, the Learning Roundtable will not succeed unless it includes all relevant stakeholders, in particular, the small business sector that represents 98% of all businesses in BC and employs a million people.
The purpose of the education system must be to prepare students for later life, yet the business community is telling us that the system is failing to provide students with even basic employment skills such as basic numeracy and literacy skills.
Education is the single most important investment in the future economic prosperity of the province. To not have the business community, the providers of that economic prosperity, represented at the Roundtable will simply ensure that it will not fulfill its primary function as future generations will remain ill-prepared for the world of work.
Career, vocational, and post-secondary programs should afford students the opportunity to become involved in, and acquainted with, a variety of work and entrepreneurial environments. This requires a closer liaison and open partnerships between business, industry and the school system.
In keeping with the ideal of an educational system which encourages and assists the lifelong learning that keeps an individual up to date in their chosen field, educational programs should also afford opportunities for those who are basically or functionally illiterate, including those who face the challenge of acquiring English as a second language, and those who seek a career in a non-academic field.
With lifelong learning, the key to prosperity in our future vocational programs must be to prepare students to meet the challenges of the local, national and international workplace with the new skills required to make both the students and BC’s economy strong and flexible now and in the future.
BC colleges and universities (both public and private), and our private and non-profit trainers, can ensure the quality of their graduates only by the maintenance of high levels of academic excellence.
For these students the business community has a critical role to play through such mechanisms as co-operative education programs, if the correct structure is put in place to encourage their participation. A province-wide co-operative infrastructure is already well established. Co-operative education programs exist in every region of BC, and are currently offered in 23 post-secondary institutions.
In 2000 to 2001, private employers created approximately 5,600 co-op placements in the province for BC post-secondary students. In 2004, that number had declined more than 25% to approximately 4,100. During that same period, the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba recognized the need to stimulate the employment/economy cycle by initiating co-op tax credits to private employers to employ and train students.
THE CHAMBER RECOMMENDS
That the Provincial Government:
- undertake a fundamental review of the school curriculum in concert with all stakeholders to ensure that students are being adequately prepared for the world of work;
- designate a place at the education Roundtable for a representative of the small business community; and
- ensure that small business and industry groups are provided access to schools on a regular basis to educate students to the expectations of the business community through the facilitation of events such as career fairs.
