North Vancouver-Lonsdale MLA and Minister of Advanced Education Naomi Yamamoto visited Powell River early last week to tour the community and give a talk at the Rotary Club of Powell River Sunrise meeting.
At the meeting Yamamoto addressed a number of community representatives who had been invited to hear the minister speak. She spoke of educational trends in general and the goals that her ministry is working towards and how they relate to Powell River.
The minister acknowledged that one of the greatest challenges facing communities like Powell River is having young people move away after finishing high school. She said that Powell River is one of the extreme examples but that in most places youth are eager to leave the community and see more of the world once they are free to roam.
The answer to this is to attract students from outside of Powell River to the educational opportunities here, according to Yamamoto. She applauded efforts by both Vancouver Island University (VIU) and School District 47 to bring international students to the area and said that on a provincial level they see this as an important trend in post-secondary education.
“We are actually set to do really big things in international education and I think the potential on the Sunshine Coast is huge,” said Yamamoto. “International education will be one of the sectors that this government will be focusing on.”
Having a skilled, educated workforce is one of the primary goals of the government, according to Yamamoto. By 2019, she said, there will be one million jobs to fill in BC that will be left empty by a large retiring workforce. Current demographics suggest that there will not be enough of an educated workforce to fill those positions, three quarters of which will require advanced education.
Yamamoto said one of the biggest problems contributing to this is that not enough high school students are going into post-secondary education. When she visits a community Yamamoto likes to consider the needs of a community and then look at whether the educational opportunities in the community go towards promoting the meeting of those needs.
“Because that’s the best way to get your workers, have people that are living here already and know your community and have them educated here,” said Yamamoto. “Our job as a government is not to create those jobs but to create the environment so that those jobs have the opportunity to be created by the business community.”
Out of the cost for breakfast the Rotary put $5 per person towards a bursary for a Powell River student entering into first year university at the local VIU campus. The event raised $200 for the bursary, which will be matched by Powell River Rotary, VIU, Catalyst Paper Corporation, Warren Behan, Jim Agius and Victor Spreeuw respectively. The morning Rotary Club will also be applying to Rotary International for an initiative that will donate 50 cents for every dollar that has been raised. Should that be approved the bursary will total $2,100.
“If we can encourage young people to experience their first year in Powell River in a sense it’s like exporting without leaving home because the $20,000 that a student might spend in the community, much of that will stay in Powell River then,” said City of Powell River Councillor and Sunrise Rotary member Chris McNaughton. “That’s important and equally important we have young people then in the community who are continuing to work in the community and contributing in other ways and I think that’s equally as valuable.”
