Sask. Polytech, province sign agreement to create more pathways for students

The Sask. Polytech campus in Regina.

A new agreement between the province’s online school and Saskatchewan Polytechnic is looking to get more students working towards a post-secondary education earlier.

“You have to allow students at the high school level to start exploring careers before they actually graduate from high school,” Sask. Polytech President Larry Rosia said Monday where a memorandum of understanding was signed.

The new five-year deal between the Saskatchewan Distance Learning Centre and the polytechnic school will align programs and help students complete prerequisites that may not have been offered at their home schools.

Advanced Education Minister Ken Cheveldayoff was at a graduation celebration over the weekend where the graduate will use the distance learning school this summer to get the necessary credits she needs from home before going to British Columbia to start her program uninterrupted and on schedule.

“It’s just given her a lot of options. And she was very excited about it and very happy,” he said. “And this was at a large school, Aden Bowman. Especially in rural Saskatchewan, it gives our graduating students — Grade 11, Grade 12 — a tremendous opportunity.”

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With many skilled trades already facing a labour shortage that’s expected to get worse with an aging population that is retiring faster than workers can be replace, Rosia says this is one way to get people into the workforce sooner to help the estimated $60 billion worth of projects being built in Saskatchewan.

“The sooner we can introduce students to that potential, to those opportunities, the better informed they are to make those career choices,” he said.

“We can’t afford to have them decide they want to do something and maybe be at the wrong choice [or] to waste a few years before they finally decide what they want to get into. We need people immediately.”

Over the past three years, the two organizations have combined to offer one-day, on-campus learning camps in autobody, mechanics, agriculture technician, parts technician and tourism program. After Monday’s agreement, opportunities will be expanded to include high-demand programs like health care, building trades, welding and others.

Rosia says the future of learning will see students taking multiple classes from multiple institutions to build their skillset. Partnering with the distance learning centre is part of ensuring those opportunities will be available.

“To work backwards from what is it they see as a potential career and what are the high school courses that they need that are either offered in their local school or in a case like this, through the distance learning corporation to get the prerequisites they require,” Education Minister Everett Hindley said.