What's New at BC Colleges April 2015
Message from Jim Reed, President of BC Colleges
Welcome to the April edition of What's New at BC Colleges. It was another busy month in the college system with a number of provincial and international collaborations, successful student competitions, the launch of new programs and the recognition of educators and alumni.
Recently there has been a significant amount of coverage in the media about post-secondary education in Canada. I would like to take a few minutes to highlight some of the key issues facing our system and post-secondary education overall.
Last Tuesday the new federal budget was unveiled. Overall, the reaction by the post-secondary sector has been positive. As a college system, our focus has been to continue to align our college programs with the top in-demand occupations as outlined in the Provincial Government's Skills for Jobs Blueprint. Given this focus by our 10 BC members, it was reassuring to see the federal government recognize the importance of post-secondary and industry alignment with the inclusion of a one-time investment of $65 M to encourage business and industry associations to work with post-secondary institutions. I believe programs designed to increase collaboration and improve relationships between business, industry and post-secondary are a step in the right direction. Other areas of interest in the federal budget include the proposal for a one-stop national labour market information portal and the $1.33 B (yes, Billion) investment planned for research infrastructure. Our college association will work with our provincial, federal, industry and business partners to ensure our colleges are well positioned to access the federal funds.