To begin, I just want to say yes, teachers are often the first to identify, but they're also the first to have that sincere interest.
In 2014 we did a survey at CTF that asked teacher respondents what they felt CTF should be advocating for at the national level. The first thing was child and youth mental health, but second was poverty, including child poverty. Well over 90% of respondents said that was where we needed to put our focus.
I know the opportunities for apprenticeships within schools are there—they are in pockets in some places, and they are better in some provinces and territories than in others— but the other thing is—and I go back to the standardized international testing and other standardized testing in schools and those have narrowed the curriculum. They've narrowed the curriculum and narrowed student choices within schools, because they have requirements to graduate. If students are looking to move to post-secondary education, they're really choosing those subjects along the way and that limits their opportunities to choose apprenticeships, to choose co-op programs, or to choose some of those other opportunities that they might otherwise choose.
I can say that, having had the experience of my own three children. They were gearing towards post-secondary and they wanted to have some of those opportunities in schools, but they just didn't have them.
Again, we want to make sure we don't target students in high schools so there is an expectation that this is the career they have to do. Education at K to 12 levels is broad-based so students can experience other things but also develop those skills that will help them in any workplace and not target them or stream them into a particular career.