The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Shelley Svidal

Increasing high school and post-secondary completion rates would help Alberta avert a projected shortfall of 100,000 skilled workers over the next decade.

That’s what several members of the Standing Policy Committee on Education and Employment suggested January 16 when they met to hear a presentation from the Alberta Association of Colleges & Technical Institutes (AACTI). The AACTI represents 17 public colleges and technical institutes, which together operate 168 campuses and learning centres in 106 communities across the province.

Grant MacEwan College Chair Eric Young and AACTI Executive Director Doug MacRae provided the committee with an overview of the organization and its member institutions, including students, programs, enrolment, graduate satisfaction, return on investment and funding. They identified getting people into the workforce, getting people into higher education and getting people committed to lifelong learning as the system’s key strengths and workforce skills development; rural development; sustainable, predictable, adequate funding; collaboration; and access as its key challenges.

Denis Herard, standing policy committee chair and MLA for Calgary-Egmont, wondered how many of the 141,030 credit students enrolled in public colleges and technical institutes graduate. He pointed out that Alberta has one of the lowest K–12 graduation rates in Canada and that an increase in that rate, as well as in the province’s post-secondary graduation rate, would help address the AACTI’s projected shortfall of 100,000 skilled workers over the next 10 years.

Young identified Alberta’s booming economy and program attrition as two reasons for the low rates, pointing out that many students graduate from institutions and/or programs other than those in which they originally enrol. Suggesting that there is not a magic formula that would equate inputs with outputs or improve the K–12 graduation rate, he stressed that the post-secondary sector is doing the best it can in the situation in which it finds itself today.

Banff Centre Chair Phil Ponting noted that everyone wants 100 percent, which he suggested is unachievable for three reasons—the student finance system, where and how courses are delivered and the need to ensure that graduating students have achieved a certain standard. He opined that graduation rates would never reach 100 percent. Advanced Education Minister Dave Hancock countered that the government ought to aim for a 100 percent high school completion rate.

Tom Thompson, president of Olds College, pointed out that students’ likelihood of graduation is determined by their early experiences in the K–12 system, on which retention hinges. He added that, when it comes to collaboration, the AACTI is trying to engage the secondary system as well as universities.

Herard wrapped up the meeting by pointing out that the word vocation comes from the Latin vocatio or "voice from within." He identified that as what students need to discover in the K–12 system. "Turned-on kids do so much better," he said.