Good day.
I'm a professor at the University of Toronto, cross-appointed to the departments of education and industrial relations. I've been invited here as the head of a research centre at the university, the Centre for the Study of Education and Work. It's a mix of community, union, and academic representatives who compose the steering committee, and it includes a network of dozens of international experts in this area.
Ms. Karen Lior, the executive director for the Toronto training board and a long-time steering committee member, will present just after me.
First, a word about the centre.The Centre for the Study of Education and Work has existed for just over ten years. Along with dozens of smaller research projects, the centre has produced two of the largest academic-based research initiatives in Canada in the study of education and work. The first initiative, from 1996-2001, was in the form of the new approaches to lifelong learning project, which featured 30 qualitative studies and the first national survey dedicated to all forms of learning and work, with special attention to informal learning. The second initaitive, from 2001 to the present, was in the form of the work and lifelong learning project that carried out an additional 9,500-person national survey on lifelong learning and work, supported by 12 carefully selected qualitative studies to test its conclusions in various sectors and occupations and across various demographics. All this research is available on our website and in related publications, which you'll have listed in some of the notes.
Of all the ideas we could discuss here today, the two main points that Karen and I wish to express to you involve, first, rethinking the lifelong learning, work, and employability question, with special attention to skills transmission and underemployment, and secondly, immigration, credential recognition, trades and labour standards, which Karen will address.
Skills, knowledge, and expertise are what Canada hopes to use to compete in a global marketplace. However, Canada now leads the world--absolutely number one--in post-secondary educational attainment, and our research over the past decade has documented that Canadians engage in enormous amounts of non-credited training and in fact in self-directed informal learning. There is, in the words of Professor David Livingstone, the current Canada research chair in lifelong learning and work, a serious education and jobs gap.
While of course it continues to remain relevant to look at education training and other employability factors, evidence from our research makes it clear that the major problem facing Canada today is not actually skills shortage, but rather skills transmission and application in the workplace. In the absence of effective transmission and application mechanisms, Canadian workers are far more likely to face underemployment, which entails considerable economic waste, as well as inequities, which damage social inclusion. The major sticking point in our competitiveness is not the supply side of the labour market. Demonstrated quantitatively and qualitatively, these are the conclusions of over ten years of detailed work, the most massive that Canada has ever seen, in fact.
Ms. Lior is going to address the immigration and trades issue in a moment, but I want to leave you with key research issues that the evidence recommends we take seriously.
First, Canada would benefit enormously from the continuation of this national survey series by adding a 2008 national survey that would extend the 1998 and the 2003 surveys to make a ten-year analysis, with a midpoint. This survey already can guide important decisions on where energies and resources should be directed and should be continued. Further, basic and applied quantitative and qualitative research is needed in light of these issues. Specifically, that emerged around the sticking points of transmission, skills and knowledge, and around issues of underemployment.
We are now in a position to ask and answer crucial questions related to organizational and sectoral change, questions such as the following:
First, why do our workplaces not activate the enormous potential of Canadian workers across demographics, including across racial categories, social class categories, and categories of disability and gender?
Second, why are trade and apprenticeship programs not making use of the incredibly strong general educational foundation available in the Canadian population?
Third, why are traditional school-to-work transitions for youth failing to plug workers into productive, satisfying, and innovative jobs?
And finally, how do workplaces benefit or not benefit from the interrelations between the workplace and strong communities, neighbourhoods, and voluntary work participation? This is in fact a highly under-researched area that can add incredible economic value as well as increase social inclusion in our society.
I'm going to pass you over to Karen Lior now.