A moment with Marketa
"Ontario's colleges are at the forefront of the new economy, ensuring students acquire the professional and technical expertise that leads to rewarding careers."
Marketa Evans is the president and CEO of Colleges Ontario, the advocacy association for Ontario’s 24 colleges. A moment with Marketa examines the top issues in post-secondary education today.
Canada’s Future Skills Council recently released a new report, Canada – A Learning Nation: A Skilled, Agile Workforce Ready to Shape the Future. The goal is to build a sustainable workforce. Clearly, colleges will be pivotal to the success of those recommendations.
Did you know that as of right now, colleges can offer and deliver four-year degrees but not three-year degrees? Instead, colleges are required to offer three-year advanced diplomas in many areas important to the economy.
This is something of a global anomaly. In most of the world, post-secondary programs that are essentially the same as our colleges’ three-year programs award degrees to graduates rather than diplomas.
When we first started working with the StrategyCorp Institute of Public Policy and Economy on a new white paper, “The Future of Ontario’s Workers,” we had some idea how the economy might transform over the next few years. Clearly, advancements like AI and robotics would have a profound effect on our future workforce.
Planning for the fall is well underway. The No. 1 priority continues to be protecting the safety of students, staff and everyone who visits college campuses while ensuring students continue to have access to high-quality programs.