George Brown, Ryerson Receive $1.5 Million For Job Training

Source: Ontario News Release via Academica | March 18, 2014

The Ontario government has committed $1.5 million towards partnerships with George Brown College and Ryerson University that are aimed towards training graduates for jobs that lack skilled employees. George Brown will receive $750,000 to train 92 unemployed and under-employed youth for commercial baking and metalwork jobs. Ryerson will get $800,000 to create 120 jobs in the high-tech sector for graduates in the social sciences and humanities; examples of possible initiatives include offering liberal arts graduates short-term training and job placements that would provide them with the types of skills already acquired by science students. Both projects are part of the government’s $25-million Youth Skills Connections program, which aims to bring employers, PSE institutions, government and young people together to tackle the so-called skills-gap issue.

TCS Insights: The Ontario government hopes to fill the void created by low numbers of skilled employees in certain industries by training unemployed and underemployed individuals for available positions. The province is displaying a commitment to providing job opportunities for all students attending post-secondary institutions.

Vocational courses at school level

Source: Times of India via India Newswatch

The Haryana government is set to launch a project, under which students at the school level would be trained in vocational courses.

The project, to be run under National Vocational Education and Qualification Framework, would be inaugurated by union human resource development minister Kapil Sibal and chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Gurgaon on Monday.

Eight districts of the state have been selected for the project and five schools in each district are going to come under it. The districts where the project to be launched are Jhajjar, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Rohtak, Ambala, Palwal, Mewat and Yamunanagar. The project includes four vocational courses like IT, Retail, Security and Automobile along with basic education and the students could avail of the employment opportunities to their maximum after doing these courses at school level, it added.

TCS Insights: The Haryana government has begun to implement the National Vocational Education and Qualification Framework (NVEQF) in schools. The implementation will enable students to choose vocational education at the school level which was not possible earlier in the current education system. This is one of the many steps taken by the Indian government to meet the target of training creating a 500 million strong skilled labour force by 2020. Canadian institutions may wish to explore the possibility of collaboration with these schools.

COU announces new family medicine training opportunities

Toronto, February 2011

The federal government would be funding $11.3 million over four years to support a project in Ontario that offers new family medicine positions and training opportunities across Canada from 2011. The funding would cover the entire costs for establishing residency positions. The Council of Ontario Universities (COU) is striving to improve access to healthcare for Ontarians in remote and rural communities. Approximately 60 additional third-year family medicine residency positions will be created at Ontario’s six Faculties of Medicine to enhance emergency medicine and enhanced skills, which includes McMaster University, University of Ottawa, Queen’s University, University of Toronto, University of Western Ontario, as well as the Northern Ontario School of Medicine at Laurentian University and Lakehead University.

According to Dr. Catharine Whiteside, co-chair person of COU Faculties of Medicine and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, “focusing on specializations such as anesthesia, obstetrics, care of the elderly, palliative care, rural skills, mental health and additions, will be a starting point to support comprehensive family practice in under-served communities.” Hence, with the continuing support from provincial government to improve health care facilities across Ontario, people living in rural communities will be having greater benefits.