Transcript No Slide Title

Association of Canadian Community Colleges
Speeding up the response
of colleges and institutes
to labour market information
Presentation to the National LMI Forum
By Paul Brennan
Halifax, November 2005
L’Association des collèges
communautaires du Canada
Comment accélérer la réaction du
réseau collégial à l’information sur
le marché du travail
Présentation au Forum national sur l’IMT
Paul Brennan
Novembre, 2005
What is the ACCC?
• The voluntary national association of
Canada’s 150 public colleges, institutes of
technology, cégeps and university colleges
• With main mandates of :
– Making the public policy positions and vast
resources of colleges known broadly;
– Bringing colleges together to improve each
others’ capacity to do better and innovate;
– Facilitating the development of partnerships
with all groups working on common issues.
Our Colleges & Institutes
• In all 10 provinces and 3 territories responsible for
covering all of Canada
• Present in 900 communities with a campus or
learning centre
• 60,000 instructors, instructional design specialists,
administrators and staff
• 900,000 full-time and 1.5 million part-time learners
• Certificates, Trades Training, Diplomas, Applied
Degrees, Post-Grad Diplomas, Adult Education
and Contract Training for the existing labour force.
Our Colleges & Institutes
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The Canadian E&T Context
• Decentralized E&T responsibility;
• Diverse systems of PSE education and
training responsive to their local realities;
• Provincial/Territorial program standards;
• Local Employer Program Advisory
Committees;
Local/Provincial LMI and signals are
there and are a strength of our system!
The Canadian Challenge
• A much more mobile workforce and student
population;
• The need for national, if not international,
standards & LMI to be fully relevant;
• The need to recognize competencies of the
existing workforce against some norm that
allows them to be lifelong learners;
• The imperative of recognizing credentials
and competencies of immigrants to ??
The demands of learners
• Colleges are mandated to focus on the
employability and skills of their learners;
• Learners have no patience with repeating
learning they already know;
• They expect to be taught to national
industry standards (lawsuits rising) for
existing jobs (KPI measurements);
• But institutions always tend to feel that what
they are doing is all unique and different.
National Sector Councils
• Created to undertake national LM studies,
develop national standards, produce sector
specific career information tools;
• Equivalent to local Program Advisory
Committees and to Provincial/Territorial
sectoral and standards committees;
How should the colleges respond ?
ACCC Affinity Groups
Groups of college administrators, faculty, staff
or students involved in similar functions or
sectors (Aviation, Mining, Child Care,…);
• Listserv/Intranet allowing communication,
exchanges within and coordinated
interactions with the sector councils;
• A Coordinating Committee, F2F meetings of
the CC and the entire group once/year
- Now have 50+ AGs with 7,000+ members!
Affinity Groups & LMI-Career Info
• Informatics (SHRC): LM study based on
expanded NOCs (3 to 25) showing us need
for more essential employability skills;
• Railways (RAC): How many workers
needed in 4 main jobs per year per region;
• Arts & Culture: The need for more training
on how to manage your career;
• Mining: The crucial shortages coming;
• Wood, Plastics, IMR: Keep programs open!
Standards with Diversity!
Institutional Pedagogy & Brand
Local/Provincial LMI & Competencies
National LMI & Common Core Competencies
Diversité avec des normes!
Pédagogie et approches institutionelles
Compétences et IMT locales/provinciales
IMT nationale et Compétences communes
Benefits of Collaboration
• Growing interest in the Trades;
• Start up of Health Informatics Programs;
• Start up of diverse Leadership Learning
opportunities for Voluntary-Community sect.
• Avoid closure of IT, Wood, IMR, Plastics
and other sector programs;
• Avoid start up of programs not needed;
• Avoid duplication of costly competency
analysis and learning outcomes devel..
Lessons Learned
• LMI & Career Info have to be interpreted,
communicated and discussed people-topeople, not just on a web site;
• Various local, provincial/territorial and
national efforts have to be coordinated or
are sending confusing mixed messages;
• Regular « good-enough » forward-looking
LMI is better than late statistically valid LMI
looking back (Speed and Relevancy)
Example of the Tourism HRC
• Board and Committees made up of both
national associations and provincial TECs;
• Yearly F2F Conference with top-notch
speakers (nuanced demographics), youth
speakers, case studies;
• Meetings of college/university educators via
the ACCC Affinity Group (85 institutions)
• Action on Career Info, Mobility, Dual
certification, FCR and Individual National
Corporate Needs.
Unanticipated Benefits
• Greater understanding and acceptance
between regions and institutions;
• Networks develop into learning
opportunities & communities of practice;
• Innovation thrives, because innovation
comes from comparing diverse responses
to reasonably similar challenges (studies);
Can have national LMI-Career Info efforts
that are adapted locally & provincially.
Usefullness of ACCC
• Use us when wanting to distribute relevant
LMI or Career Info products;
• Use us when you want the college
perspective on a LM study or career info
product (We have a Career Info AG)
• Use us when you need to get similar
training done in different parts of the
country.
Contact me at [email protected]