The province’s plan to offer high school courses that help prepare students for jobs in the technology sector is music to the ears of B.C.’s largest school district.
More than 600,000 B.C. students will have access to courses in basic technology skills like coding plus work experience in the field and dual-credit partnerships between post-secondary institutions and high schools.
The Surrey School District, which has 68,286 students, welcomes Premier Christy Clark’s announcement at last week’s BC Tech Summit in Vancouver, said Doug Strachan, the school district’s manager of communication services.
Strachan said the school district envisions an ideal outcome in which the local tech community retains more young talent.
“It’s the dream scenario for a lot of students and their families in Surrey – to be able to learn their skills here, take it to post-secondary and then find jobs in the community. So this greatly helps facilitate that.”
Strachan added that the government’s pledge complements current programs, including a Fraser Heights Secondary initiative in which students take Simon Fraser University math and technology classes while still in high school.
“It’s certainly another tool, another skill that we can send into the job market,” Strachan said. “We meet with businesses in our community when we put together our strategic plans for education and the directions we want to go, and we’ve found the business community does see a skills shortage in this particular area.”
Surrey has the Lower Mainland’s largest youth population and the highest number of people under the age of 19 in B.C.
Amrik Virk, minister of technology, innovation and citizens’ services and MLA for Surrey-Tynehead, said the idea is to foster talent, at as early an age as possible in the technology sector.
“Last year Surrey was rated internationally as one on the top 10 intelligent communities in the world,” Virk said in an email. “But we need to maintain our cutting edge and equip our young people with a tech-based education that will keep B.C. above all our competitors. … Curriculum changes are introducing students to technology programming earlier in their lives, and we are creating more workplace opportunities for our young people to learn and develop expertise.”
The provincial government already helped set up Innovation Boulevard, a collective health-technology hub in Surrey, and the City of Surrey has injected capital into a clean-energy hub through its economic investment action plan. Anita Huberman, chief executive officer for the Surrey Board of Trade, said giving students the chance to explore the technology sector while still in high school will help fill jobs in the field.
“Coding classes can be a bridge between a career in creating new software technology or starting the next technology wave right here in Surrey,” Huberman said.
