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Category: Apprenticeships, Skills & Trades

A Challenge and An Opportunity in College Education

Earlier this week the Manitoba Government released a report that I and my colleague Yves Pelletier worked on for most of last year, the Manitoba College Review (you can read the report here). It was a challenging assignment, but I am very grateful to the many people to everyone who spent time with us and contributed to the report, and to all the alumni who answered our survey.  In terms of system governance, we made some fairly sweeping recommendations, ones that give government

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March 22, 2018 4 Comments

The Budget Speech Bill Morneau Should Give

“…Mr. Speaker, we know that living standards depend on productivity, productivity depends on innovation, and innovation depends on skills, technology, and competition.  So we are going to ramp up on all of them.  This won’t be easy.  It won’t be quick.  We are not doing this with an eye to the next election; it’s a marathon not a sprint.  But we have to start somewhere. Skills Let’s start with skills.  While recognizing that having a skilled labour force is a

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February 27, 2018 1 Comment

Trade-offs in Apprenticeships

I haven’t worked on apprenticeship projects much in the last few years, but one of my current gigs has got me thinking about the area again.  And one thing that I apparently missed completely was a new (well, new to me anyway) effort to harmonize apprenticeship program sequencing nationally (details here). Wait a minute, you say – weren’t apprenticeships always harmonized?  Isn’t that what Red Seal is all about? Well, sort of.  Red Seal was about harmonizing outcomes.  Basically, Red

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May 11, 2017 2 Comments

Apprenticeships: Canada vs. Germany

Delayed Trans-Atlantic flights and missed connections eliminated Alex’s time for writing an all new blog today. However, in the wake of this IRPP articleon adopting the German “dual education system” in Canada, we are running this 2013 post on the significant and generally overlooked differences between German and Canadian apprenticeships. Enjoy! Let’s play a game called: “Comparing Canadian and German Apprenticeships Using Actual Statistics, Instead of the Usual Misinformed Anecdotal BS That Passes for Analysis in Canadian PSE Policy Circles”.  We

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May 3, 2017 5 Comments

The Next Big Skills Policy Agenda

So today is budget day.  If the papers are anything to go by, there’s something big-ish in there about “skills” which will no doubt be presented as some massive benefit to the country’s middle class (and those trying to join it). I have difficulty imagining what might be announced since most skills policies are in the hands of the provinces.  But what I do know is that skills policy is an area long overdue a makeover. The labour force is

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March 22, 2017 2 Comments

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One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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