In 2020, myself and colleagues from Calgary Financial Improvement and Canada West Basis co-authored a column within the Calgary Herald entitled Calgary on the Precipice: Reinventing Our Metropolis Begins with Reinventing How We Study. This column was a abstract of a bigger report that argues the financial and social prosperity of Calgary relies on our residents having the capability to embrace uncertainty and adapt.
Three years (and a pandemic) later, as a metropolis, as employers, as mother and father and as learners, it’s time to consider our progress and acknowledge we proceed to face a urgent downside.
The street to reinvention
An audit of Calgary’s studying system discovered that 3,063 organizations ship 30,870 applications and three.5 million studying experiences yearly. The problem is that the system will not be organized, and this ends in inefficiency and an absence of shared objective. The LearningCITY Collective was established to facilitate collaboration between learners, educators, employers and policymakers. Final yr, the LearningCITY Collective launched Calgary’s Abilities Improvement Framework to information future priorities and investments. This framework recognized 4 imperatives to information priorities:
- Calgarians ought to view the inevitable disruption as a possibility.
- Justice, fairness, variety and inclusion should be embedded within the studying course of and championed by all; a transfer from credentials to competencies will facilitate this.
- Calgary’s studying system should empower customized, purpose-based studying.
- To drive innovation, Calgary’s studying system should be open and aggressive.
Recognizing progress
As a system, progress has been made on these imperatives by innovators throughout our metropolis. Beneath are examples at a system, post-secondary and past the post-secondary stage.
- The launch of the 15,000-square-foot Open Studying Lab in Bow Valley Sq. by the LearningCITY Collective as an inclusive house for collaboration, harmonization and experimentation in studying.
- The launch of TalentED YYC to speed up work-integrated studying alternatives for learners and companies.
- The piloting of a harmonized enabling abilities framework, Competencies for Life, by a consortium of 15 neighborhood companions.
- The Future Digital Pathways program permits present highschool college students within the Calgary Board of Schooling to start taking post-secondary programs via SAIT, together with pursuing internships.
- The United Means’s launch of Planet Youth to advertise objective and well-being amongst youth.
Submit-secondary examples
Past post-secondary examples
Unlocking the potential of all Calgarians
The above initiatives are merely scratching the floor of the innovation and disruption being delivered throughout our studying system. These all should be celebrated.
Nevertheless, there’s a bigger urgent downside we should confront. For a lot of Calgarians, pursuing a standard post-secondary credential stays a privilege out of attain. Guaranteeing that every one studying pathways are valued, acknowledged and open to all Calgarians will unlock the true potential of our metropolis and our residents. The educational system — together with educators, employers, and policymakers — should develop, scale and acknowledge extra open and accessible studying pathways. Pathways that prioritize growing the capability to study, unlearn and relearn. Pathways that acknowledge studying is now not outlined by a stage of life. Pathways which can be as numerous as our metropolis.
The reinvention of how we study will not be a vacation spot, it’s a journey that should be open to all 1.4 million Calgarians. It is a problem all of us ought to settle for.
David Finch is the chair of the LearningCITY Collective, and professor and senior fellow on the Institute for Group Prosperity at Mount Royal College.