Thank you for the invitation to speak with you today, honourable members, on the persistent challenge of youth unemployment.
We have two recommendations to propose, which will conclude my remarks.
My name is Nobina Robinson, and I'm the CEO of Polytechnics Canada, the association that represents Canada's leading urban, degree-granting, publicly funded colleges and polytechnics. You know us best as the champions for increased supports for apprentices and the inclusion of college applied research in federal support for innovation and R and D.
Polytechnic applied education has three distinct features that are relevant for our discussion.
We offer undergraduate degrees and graduate certificates as well as the full range of traditional community college vocational and professional credentials. We offer more than 220 skilled trades training programs, and student involvement in applied research projects is available for hands-on R and D experience, along the lines of what our colleagues in Mitacs do for the graduate students.
Applied education is outcomes-based. Our members work closely with industry partners to set curricula according to industry standards, ensuring that our graduates will meet employer expectations and hit the ground running on day one on the job. Work-integrated learning is the hallmark of our model of education. Irrespective of the various debates over the skills mismatch, I want to make the case that advanced applied education is the best insurance against youth unemployment and underemployment.
There is a diverse set of needs and experience levels among the youth who are unemployed and underemployed. At least two different descriptors are needed to capture this diversity: those who are “not in education, employment, or training”, now known as NEETs; and those who are the “poorly integrated new entrants” to the labour force, now referred to as PINEs, as our colleagues in CASA mentioned.
It is the PINEs I want to focus on today, those who are underemployed, sometimes overqualified, or generally mismatched to the needs of employers.
I understand that you will be hearing from the traditional community college sector next week. All of Canada's colleges offer solutions for those known as NEETs. Polytechnic institutions have innovated their training programs to develop a solution for PINEs.
We saw a strong trend of students enrolling in our institutions who had already completed a university bachelor's degree and who sought targeted skills that would give them a competitive advantage in the marketplace. We developed graduate certificates to respond to this demand, providing students with small classes, industry-experienced faculty, and relevant workplace experience. These certificates put them not just into a new job but on the on-ramp to a prosperous career.
In the absence of timely labour market information—a vital federal role—we've decided to collect our own. Our members offer more than 200 such graduate certificate programs open only to those who have completed a prior post-secondary credential, usually a university degree. An average of 12% of our full-time students have already completed a four-year university bachelor's degree and are now enrolled in these targeted graduate certificate programs. In some cases, the percentage of university graduates is as high as 15%.
These graduate certificates are in high demand. The ratio of qualified applicants for each available seat is often 10:1 or higher. I can provide specific examples in our discussions to follow.
Our two recommendations for your study are the following.
First, provide timely, relevant, objective, credible, and consistent labour market information by focusing on two Statistics Canada surveys: modernize and improve the Workplace and Employee Survey; and reactivate the Youth in Transition Survey. These were noted by the 2009 Drummond panel. These surveys will provide the depth and the breadth of data needed to connect education to employment. That will allow employers to look for new hires with the right credentials and will allow educational institutions to design more outcomes-oriented programs and students to make more informed choices about what to study.
Second, to increase the capacity of our institutions' high-demand programs, such as these graduate certificates, a portion of the funding for the Canada social transfer for post-secondary education should be set aside for demand-driven, industry-responsive programs.
For every one student who gets to register for these in-demand programs, our current capacity restraints force us to turn away nine other fully qualified applicants.
In conclusion, the plight of younger workers is a persistent social and economic challenge that has much impact on Canada's productivity. As a closing remark, it is worth saying that all of this will be easier to do once we establish a parity of esteem among the various post-secondary options young people choose from today.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.