New report finds that Ontario is falling behind in preparing students for their future
One of the main purposes of schooling is to prepare young people for adulthood and jobs. At a time when there is growing pressure to prepare students for a future that is rapidly changing and increasingly complex, our latest report finds that Ontario may be falling behind.
The report, based on results from our Annual Ontario School Survey, focuses on the policies, programs, and resources that support young people as they move through school and prepare for a range of post-secondary pathways. It calls for improved resources to support students' career and life planning, the end of streaming in grade 9, and a more comprehensive strategy to ensure that students leave school with the competencies and skills they need to support their success, no matter what their destination after graduation.
Schools struggling to implement career and life-planning policy
In 2014, Ontario introduced policy to support career and life planning for students from kindergarten through grade 12. Five years later, it is clear that the policy has not achieved the desired outcomes. Principals report a number of implementation challenges, including a lack of resources and competing priorities.
Among the findings in the report:
- Despite the fact that Individual Pathways Plans (IPPs) are mandatory, only 57% of high schools report that all students have them. IPPs are online portfolios that are supposed to be updated twice a year, with support from guidance counsellors, teachers, and parents. IPPs help students keep track of who they are, what they want, what they're learning, and what the next steps are on their path to adulthood.
- All high schools are required to have career and life planning advisory committees (including teachers, administrators, parents, community members, and students), but only 34% have them.
- Schools with advisory committees are more than twice as likely to provide professional development for teachers about career and life planning, and are much more likely to report that all students have IPPs.
- While provincial policy says that competencies and skills to support career and life planning (knowing yourself, understanding how to achieve goals and manage transitions, having capacity to explore opportunities and make decisions) should be embedded throughout the curriculum from kindergarten to grade 12, Ontario lags behind British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec in this area.
