Thank you.
Our apologies for being a little late; WestJet had some problems.
Thank you for the invitation and for the opportunity to welcome you to Alberta. Of course, some of your MPs are from here, so that's fine, but on behalf of the college and technical institute system, we'd like to welcome you.
Our system, as Sam indicated, represents all of the public colleges and technical institutes in the province of Alberta. There are 17 institutions. We serve over 140,000 credit students annually and an additional 250,000 non-credit students. This represents more than 54% of the credit students registered in our institutions. And that's all students; in other words, there are more students in our institutions than there are in universities, which might be of interest to your group.
Our system provides a wide range of programming primarily focused on preparing people for employment. Sam will talk about the skills shortage in a few minutes. We have a wide range of programs and the most comprehensive institutions in Canada, as far as the provincial system. We have apprentice training, which Sam will also talk about. We have career programs, usually one- and two-year, which lead directly to employment. We have a university transfer where, for example, at Keyano College here in Fort McMurray, you can take the first year or two and then transfer to a university. Our community colleges and institutes also offer applied degrees and academic upgrading. Recently legislative change has allowed our institutions to offer baccalaureate degrees.
We have a focus, as I've indicated, on the skills shortage. That's why we wanted to talk to you today. We recognize this as not only an Alberta problem but a national problem that we are here to address. That leads naturally into the first area we want to talk about, which is the skills shortage.
Sam.