By Karolyn Hart
Innovation is playing a key role in today’s business core and the need to ensure that tomorrow’s future workforce is well equipped is something that is dominating community development conversations. In Windsor-Essex, community organizations including WindsorEssex Economic Development Corporation, Workforce Windsor-Essex, and WEtech Alliance are partnering together through the WE Prosper Council’s Skilled Trades Task Force to discuss how to spark interest in math, science and engineering at a young age. By providing our youth with the necessary tools and resources that promote Math, Science, Engineering and Innovation we are setting them up to succeed in today’s business world.
Most in the industry can clearly see the benefit of promoting or better yet selling the idea of the sciences to our future leaders, but engaging those students is a difficult challenge. With more college students choosing alternative fields of study, we are realizing that it is crucial to encourage fields in technology, math and engineering as most jobs require these specific skill sets and more advanced knowledge in these areas.
Our local education resources, starting as early as high school, provide amazing support and programs to guide students in the right direction but it may be necessary to do a bit more to get students to become passionate about careers of the future. Most students understand at a high-level the importance of innovation in businesses and that math, science and engineering play a key role in this equation. They just choose other routes or do not show enough interest in these fields to pursue further education when reaching college or university.
So the question is, how do we create excitement about educating our youth in fields that will not only benefit them directly down the road but will also create strong business leaders in the future? We start by creating interest in these fields at a younger age. By the time most students reach high school, they have formed specific interests in certain classes and are pushed to make decisions on their future by mid-high school. Creating interest earlier in education could change the way students look at technical fields.
For this reason, ensuring that parents are educated on the future promising sectors and have accurate information on what today’s skilled trades are all about is critical. Take for example a common misperception from some parents that the “skilled trades” are not a viable option for a career. They discourage their children with stories of it being “boring and dirty” work that is completely inaccurate. Many of today’s skilled trades require a high-level of technical expertise that offer bright and varying work environments.
Even if parents aren’t “yet” getting it, we know that students in our region are. Earlier this month the Windsor Star ran a story on Herman Secondary Students who called a press conference because they wanted to shine a light on the skilled trades shortage. If this is a sign of our future leaders than our future truly is bright!
Karolyn Hart is the Vice President of Marketing, Operations, and Community Development with the WindsorEssex Economic Development Corporation.