Feds Target Students’ Skills Gap With Funding Rollout

Students walk on the campus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver in this file photo. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

OTTAWA—The federal government is making its biggest push yet into the country’s classrooms, hoping that millions in new spending will help students heading on to campuses to leave there better prepared to join the workforce.

The government has been told by its economic advisory council that it needs to put more resources into what’s known as work-integrated learning, because existing efforts aren’t big enough to tackle the “real gap” that exists in worker readiness, as companies believe a “majority of graduates are unprepared for the workforce.”

The details outlined in federal documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act provide a look at the government’s thinking on the spending and how the money could influence post-secondary education.

The Liberals had promised to spend $73 million over four years to subsidize educational work placements, with funds to start flowing last year. The spending was delayed until this academic year to finalize funding deals with the employer groups.

The 2016 budget predicted the money would create up to 8,700 placements over four years, but Labour Minister Patty Hajdu announced this week the funding will create up to 10,000 positions. A further $221 million over five years should create 50,000 total placements for graduate researchers.

“Oftentimes, [students] are academically astute, but they’re not necessarily truly understanding how to apply that learning that they’ve gained through their studies to the work setting,” Hajdu said in a recent interview.

“The idea behind work-integrated learning is that it addresses that concern that employers have that there is this gap in terms of the applicability of what they’re learning.”

"There's a different skill set that's needed in our workforce.

— Sashya D'Souza, Toronto Financial Services Alliance