Career Pathways in a Rapidly Changing World
This is part of a series of blogs about how policymakers and practitioners in five countries—Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Scotland and the U.S.—are supporting their young people in transitioning from senior secondary school or high school to the postsecondary path of their choosing. This project was carried out over the last year in partnership with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and with funding from the Carnegie Corporation and Rodel. Click here for more on this project.
5 Lessons Learned from Canada’s Career Pathways
In the wake of the pandemic, the explosion of AI, and major shifts in their economy, Canada is engaging in innovative ways to prepare the next generation for the careers of their choice.
As context, Canada’s land mass is slightly larger than the U.S. and their diverse population of about 39 million people, is larger than Australia’s 26 million, and about eight times smaller than the 332 million in the U.S. In terms of how education policy decisions are made here, the country is divided into 10 provinces and three territories and when they were confederated in the Canadian Constitution Act of 1867, exclusive legislative responsibility for education was granted to those provinces and territories. That means Canada does not have a federal department of education.
Given that backdrop, the project team worked with our international advisors to identify two provinces that were doing innovative work in career readiness, and while there is good work happening across the country, we decided to focus on British Columbia (B.C.) and New Brunswick (N.B.). B.C. is on the west coast (population of about five million) and New Brunswick is on the east coast (population about 800,000). In preparing the working paper, our team completed a desk review of the policies and research and spoke with and surveyed over one hundred educators, policymakers, and students across the two provinces.
Five Takeaways. While the working paper goes into more depth on the range of approaches in the two provinces, and the podcast can provide more color from participants on the ground, this shorter blog is meant to provide five takeaways worth deeper exploration by leaders in other jurisdictions. (Any quotes that follow come from recorded interviews with the participants between April 2023 and February 2024.)
- Set a vision for an “educated citizen.” Some 35 years ago, in 1989, policymakers in B.C. articulated a mandate for the school system focused on the development of the “educated citizen.”* The mandate laid out a definition which included three areas of development: intellectual, social-emotional, and career readiness. Just over 25 years later, the mandate continued to support curriculum transformation in B.C. Angie Calleberg, Executive Director for student learning in B.C., shared that through many roundtables with people across the province that they came to the realization that “an educated citizen” was still the goal for the school system. Through these community dialogues, they realized that the transformation of their curriculum had to transition from rote learning to students “being able to access information and to make sense of what they’re seeing in ways that are personally and socially responsible.” The process of engaging the community since 2011 was critical. Ms. Calleberg explained, “the hallmark of what we’ve accomplished together happened because of open and transparent processes and being able to bring in every single perspective that’s going to want to have a voice in those processes.”
- Start earlier. Both B.C. and N.B. utilize career readiness curriculum frameworks that begin at kindergarten and go through senior secondary school. B.C.’s K-12 career curriculum can be found here and N.B.’s framework is linked here. Building early self-awareness about who and what one values makes sense, especially given how fast AI is moving, and the fact that many of the jobs that exist today will change or go away by the time a secondary school student graduates. When I spoke with Bonnie Alexander, the Career Education Coordinator for the Victoria School District, she explained that much of the work in the early grades was not about asking “what” they want to be and more about “who” they want to be. Much of her work was inspired by research. She shared, “Hands-on career education woven into the curriculum is a great platform for me to teach teachers how to bring that curriculum to life. Through research, we know that kids start to make assumptions about their suitability to work as early as age seven, so all the programs that I run are meant to interrupt that.”
- Value work-integrated learning. In both provinces, secondary students can receive academic credit for working. In New Brunswick, a growing number of students are engaging in the Essential Skills Achievement Pathways (ESAP). This two-year program, started about six years ago, employs a mix of skills-based problem solving, project-based learning, and on-the-job experience. This is not an add-on to the curriculum; it is the core curriculum. Depending on a student’s future plans, they can prepare for postsecondary education, an apprenticeship, or direct entry into the workforce. All pathways require students to engage in experiential work-based learning, with the “Workplace Entry” pathway requiring a mandatory work placement of at least 400 hours. Beth Henderson, Learning Specialist in the Essential Skills unit of the N.B. Ministry of Education, and an architect of ESAP, shared that getting this real-life experience was critical to helping young people make informed choices. She said, “we did a survey of teachers and one of the most used lines was that ‘we want students to keep their options open’. That’s actually the worst career development advice you can give to kids. What they need to do is figure out their skills, talents, and abilities and align those to reality. That’s success; that’s when hopeful transitions happen.” In B.C., students must engage in 30 hours of a school-approved work placement or volunteer experience as a part of their high school experience, see Career Education 10-12 Guide for more. Students can also engage in Work Experience (WEX)12A and 12B, elective courses that can count for eight of the 80 credits required for graduation. While these experiences also need to be approved by the school and are tied into Ministry curricula and guidelines, they are largely about building real-life work experiences while in secondary school.
- Embrace student agency. The two provinces approached this differently, but both were attempting to meet students where they were and provide more opportunities to help young people have agency over when, how, and what they learn. In B.C., beyond the exploratory work in the early grades, there is a range of consistent components related to career readiness at the secondary level. In addition to their 30 hours of work or volunteer experience, they must complete two courses: Career-Life Education and Career-Life Connections (in which students learn about everything from personal finances to preparing a CV) and a “capstone project” that provides students with an opportunity to reflect on what they’ve learned and how those lessons connect to life after secondary school. Students can customize their learning experiences. For some, that could be dual credit courses at Camosun College to get a head start on an apprenticeship or higher education, or it might involve a semester or two exploring a sampler of trades through the Youth Work in Trades (WRK) program. One student I spoke with in Vancouver explained that when he started high school, he struggled. He shared, “I thought I was going to be a troubled kid,” but getting involved in carpentry just clicked. As a 12th grade student on his way to his “red seal” or journeyman status, he shared, “I learned I’m not a sit-down- in-the-classroom learner. You’ve got to show me a few times, and I’ll get it. I learned how to learn, and now I’m way more independent.” For N.B., Beth Henderson explained that, “Essential Skills really allowed N.B. to recognize that we can do school differently… It has allowed students to really personalize. They realize that everything is done with reason and intention for them.” One ESAP student explained, “I think it’s a great process because everyone else my age that isn’t in Essential Skills is still looking for part-time jobs. They don’t know what they’re looking for at all. Essential Skills is great because it has given me a lot more comfort in the sense that I know what I’m doing. I know where I’m going. I know the next step.”
- Leverage regional partnerships. Career pathways require cross-sector partnerships among K-12 schools, higher education, and employers. Building these new bridges can be people and funding intensive, so both provinces have built creative partnerships to be more efficient. In N.B., these partnerships take the form of Centres of Excellence. These six centres serve as hubs focusing on sectors ranging from digital innovation to manufacturing and health care. At these centers, employers, educators, students and higher education partners are working to reimagine career readiness by leveraging virtual and experiential learning that connects students to the real world. Through these centers, students and educators throughout the province can coordinate on a given sector and therefore better target their resources. In B.C. I got a chance to visit the South Island Partnership (SIP) on the campus of Camosun College. Here, five school districts on the southern end of Vancouver Island collaborate with the college on delivery of dual-credit courses for students pursuing higher education or an apprenticeship. They also have an inspiring program for students with significant barriers to education called, Pathways for Life Learning and Work. By working together, these school districts can offer a greater mix of course offerings at a lower price, but it’s about more than just cost savings. Nicola Priestley, director of SIP, explained that a given course at Camosun might require 25 students to officially fill out a class. By sharing the load across five districts, each district only needs to identify five students interested in a given subject. “With everyone contributing into the partnership, there’s more access and opportunity for larger projects,” she said. “And the opportunity for our districts to come together and see each other monthly they become connected not just around dual credit and career exploration, but they’re constantly talking, so that feeling of community and connection is magical.”
While I’ll be writing more on this topic, this is the last of the blogs on the countries in this OECD project. It’s been fascinating to see how policymakers, practitioners, and most of all students, are working through how to prepare for this rapidly changing world. Thanks again to all the leaders across the five countries who opened their doors to our team, for our teams at the OECD and Rodel who worked tirelessly to get this project over the finish line, and thank you to our funders at the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Rodel for making this possible.
For more blogs, podcasts, and the larger working paper on this project, please visit this page. And for more information on the OECD’s career readiness research, please click here.
Resources:
*See this link for the B.C. mandate (1989) to an “educated citizen.” www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/administration/legislation-policy/legislation/schoollaw/d/oic_128089.pdf
Related Topics: career pathways, delaware pathways, oecd, opportunity america, walton family foundation
