Health Services, November 20, 2023

In today’s Voc Talk Café we discussed some of the challenges of preparing students for the workforce concerning labour relations, workforce expectations and regulations. It is part of the program to teach legislative aspects of the trade (CNESST, Federal Labour Code) but it is often difficult to have them situate their learning in a real-world environment from the constraints of an educational environment. This could be because of their lack of personal experience as a worker; a diverse job field; time constraints of the learning schedule and program content; or trade culture. For newcomers to Canada, this struggle can be more intense since many foreign-born workers are overskilled for the jobs that they occupy, leading to a misunderstanding of what tasks they are expected to accomplish. It would be very beneficial to develop partnerships with industry partners where the students could have more connections with the workforce before graduating, similar to the European VET system, where they would experience the culture and expectations of the workforce in context.

This meeting was on November 20, 2023. It was hosted by Robin Long, Provincial Vocational Training Education Consultant and Marc Vézina, Education Consultant, RÉCIT-Vocational Training, English School Boards.