Thank you very much.
My name is Brian McMillan. I'm the past chair of the Atlantic Provinces Community College Consortium. With me is my colleague Ken MacRae. He is the executive director.
I know you have copies of our submission, so I'll just speak to some of the highlights, given that the time is limited.
Our country, in particular Atlantic Canada, needs to have a highly skilled and productive workforce if we are to compete in today's global economy. We face some challenges in Atlantic Canada, but they're not unique to Atlantic Canada.
One of our challenges, of course, is the literacy level. About 40% of our workforce cannot read at the levels required to compete in the knowledge economy.
We have another challenge with an undereducated workforce, with about 24% of our workforce without high school credentials. There's a graph in here that speaks to the probability of getting employment with only high school. Another 50% do not have post-secondary education, which, as you know, is the standard that's required today to become gainfully employed.
We also face skill shortages. Particularly with the recession, we've seen an increase in the number of individuals who want to move out of those sectors where there aren't great employment opportunities and into the emerging sectors. Those individuals do require training and support. Just as importantly, many employers today want to upscale their current employees so that the company and the employees can compete in the knowledge economy. While some funding has been designated recently for persons who are employed, I think this is an area that needs greater emphasis.
Colleges, as compared with other post-secondary institutions, tend to have a higher percentage of what we refer to as the “under-represented” populations. Those include single parents and individuals with lower socio-economic status, the bottom two quartiles. Statistics Canada shows representation of about 25% from each one of those lower sectors within our college system.
Of course, we also have a higher percentage of persons with learning problems.
I know that we have speakers here to talk about the aboriginal group. I'm sure they're more than capable of speaking to their training and skills requirements.
All of this is to say that this is a under-represented group that can become very independent with the necessary training.
So what's the good news? Well, the good news is that the community college system is very well positioned to provide this support, with over 50 campuses in Atlantic Canada. We have direct ties with business and industry. They're on each of our advisory committees, so the relationship exists. We also enjoy good relationships with government.
Also, I guess from the perspective of both taxpayers and the government, as you'll notice from the brief, there's an excellent return on investment of 13% for taxpayers. I don't know of too many groups today that will give you that type of return on investment. There's a 17% return for students annually. In Atlantic Canada, for those persons who have college credentials, it's estimated that there's a $9.6 million social savings annually.
Another positive is that we do have infrastructure, resources, and a talented research team that could help to produce more innovation and commercialization of products. Community colleges now are moving, and rightly so, into applied research topics.
The reason we use the word “applied” is that it's much more basic. When you think of R and D, we're more into the development than we are into long-term research, where you're into the discovery of new pharmaceuticals or new transplants, which have a high risk of maybe never getting to market.
What we do is provide those SMEs with technology transfer knowledge so that their companies can be competitive. There's a real return on investment. Our research tends to be much more applied. I can give you a specific example from P.E.I. in the area of agrifood. A dried potato pellet company wanted to compete with the contract of Kentucky Fried in the States. By working with research chefs, they were able to get that contract. That was done in six months. I think that's a good return.
What are the things we're looking for? We're looking for a contribution of $500 million annually for infrastructure and capital equipment so that the 7,732 students on a wait list will be able to access the college system.
We need increased funding for research. We're looking at a 5% increase there.
We're also looking for support to address the under-represented group.
Even though this year in our Atlantic colleges there are more than 7,700 people on a wait list, it is encouraging; it does speak to their desire to become educated. I think that's a real plus for us.
In summary, the college system knows what needs to be done. We have the ability to do it. We just need the resources.
Thank you very much.