At an annual event for bringing together industry and community leaders and representatives from the colleges and institutes sector, one construction company executive was asked how his organization stays up to date on technology, regulations and industry trends. The answer was simple: “We hire new graduates, who are exposed to all that in school and who come with fresh ideas and new energy.”
This is part of the value proposition of Canadian colleges and institutes, along with their mandate to educate career-ready graduates, says Sarah Watts-Rynard, CEO of Polytechnics Canada, an organization representing publicly supported polytechnics, colleges and institutes of technology.
Close connections to industries and communities enable these post-secondary institutions to have the pulse of the labour market and respond to both long-standing and emerging community needs, yet Ms. Watts-Rynard predicts that these powerful benefits will likely be affected by recent changes in the funding environment, including a cap on international students and decreased provincial support.
“Colleges and polytechnics have always been labour-market driven, so a diminished capacity – with potentially reduced numbers of programs, instructors and facilities – will impact how they can respond to urgent needs,” she says. “This is going to hurt communities across the country.”
For many colleges and polytechnics, revenue from international student enrolment helped maintain “a range of programs – for example, in skilled trades, technology and health care – that require small class sizes and lots of equipment. Expenses for such education often exceed what is covered by domestic tuition and government support,” Ms. Watts-Rynard says.
“There has been a social contract that allowed taking profit from one area to backfill another.”
As a result, the outfall from the changes will not be limited to programs that have traditionally been favoured by international students, such as business degrees. Instead, it will also reach programs where heavy enrolment is critical to the functioning of Canadian society, she says. “This is going to impact Canada’s ability to deliver affordable early childhood education and address shortages in the health-care and construction workforce.”
What enables colleges and polytechnics to deliver a “truly responsive education” are close links to local employers, says Ms. Watts-Rynard. “Industry-academic collaboration is built into their DNA. Program advisory committees offer ongoing feedback – and this means students can be confident they gain the competencies that are required in the workplace.”
Through applied research and capstone projects, learners also get to understand the challenges businesses face, she notes. “Applied research creates a win-win-win situation, where businesses or community partners find a solution for a problem or realize an opportunity. Students have a chance to work on a real-world project as well as forge valuable connections in the industry. And faculty members come away with an even better sense of what businesses are struggling with; they can then incorporate these insights into what they teach in the classroom.”
According to a study by Polytechnics Canada, 51 per cent of applied research project partners reported increased R&D capability, 48 per cent achieved improved competitiveness and 12 per cent said they created new jobs. Ms. Watts-Rynard adds that businesses often hire the students they collaborate with.
These partnership opportunities are especially valuable for small and medium-sized companies, a group that faces unique barriers to investing in R&D, including a shortage of technical staff, lack of facilities, capital constraints and regulatory burdens.
More than 85 per cent of applied research partners working with polytechnics are small or mid-sized organizations, she says. “Adopting new technologies, for example, AI, can represent a significant risk for a small business that may not have the time and money to even consider the potential benefits of a solution, let alone test and customize it.”
Working with a polytechnic can help to derisk the process through access to facilities and talent, essentially providing “a good stepping stone towards solving challenges in businesses and communities,” says Ms. Watts-Rynard. “Our doors are also always open for upskilling people in the workforce who are thinking about the green transition or AI adoption, for example.”
In light of these important contributions of colleges and polytechnics to the success of learners, industry, communities and society overall, there is an urgent need for support and measures that “enable the sector to stabilize and regroup.
“We have this expectation that post-secondary education should be accessible and affordable for every Canadian, but that’s going to be more difficult to achieve when colleges and polytechnics have to shrink what they offer to be financially viable, which is happening in the current situation,” says Ms. Watts-Rynard. “When the ability of institutions to respond to labour market demand is diminished, the impact may not be obvious overnight, but it will be felt by many in the medium and long term.”