Alberta’s Minister of Education traveled to Germany earlier this month to visit schools and industry sites.
Demetrios Nicolaides says it was this province’s first educational mission to Germany and he returned to Alberta on June 15th.
He notes it was interesting to see ‘first-hand’ how that country approaches career education. Nicolaides says “One of the things that they do is they give students opportunities to begin career pathways a lot earlier. Sometimes 15 (years old), 16. Doesn’t mean that is the end. If they do something, they do an apprenticeship for a few years they can still go to university afterwards. There is a lot of laddering built in. So, you know, we can’t replicate what is happening in other countries but I think we can learn some lessons. Big takeaway for me was a lot more exposure to career options at earlier ages. So, I’m curious to see what we can do in Alberta to give students more exposure to career options at earlier ages.”
According to Nicolaides, they are looking at some of the things that might be able to work in Alberta. He says “You know, I think we have to look at that. We’ve got a lot more homework to do, so as I was mentioning, just wrapped up the trip. So want to have a little bit more conversation with our partners. See what are you doing currently? What could we do? What does that look like? What our costs are? Just have holistic and comprehensive picture of what we are talking about.”
While in Germany, he also points out that Alberta’s Ministry of Education was also able to see some of the things that maybe this province does a better job of and where our successes are.
Meanwhile, Alberta’s Minister of Education toured around the Olds College of Agriculture & Technology campus last Thursday (June 20th) as part of a Central Alberta Collegiate Institute event.
He says we have a shortage of skilled trades professionals and in order to keep our province moving along we need to encourage more young people to see success and opportunities in the trades.
One of the ways that we can do that, according to Nicolaides, is by letting them actually experience it and dual credit is pathway to help them do that.