Path 12 - Facilitate and encourage access to vocational training
Few students in general education—about one in five of young people under the age of 20—take the educational path of vocational training. Parents and guidance counsellors play an important role in providing academic and vocational counselling. MELS will implement measures to provide better access to vocational training.
MELS and the schools are aware that vocational training is one of the major factors that will enable Québec to help more students stay in school and succeed, and enable us to meet our economic challenges, and they will continue and intensify their respective actions.
Promotion of skilled occupations and trades
MELS will continue to promote vocational training among young people, parents and players in the school system in order to combat the myths and prejudices that surround this training.
MELS will continue its actions to facilitate and accelerate the transition from general education to vocational training for young people under 20. Examples of this are the elective programs Exploration of Vocational Training and Personal Orientation Project in the second cycle of secondary school, and the support for activities developed by the school boards to enable students in general education and adult education to explore vocational training programs.
Furthermore, MELS and the school boards will help young people to gain access to the applied general education path at the secondary level.
School boards will act jointly to maximize a student’s chances of being admitted to the program of his or her choice in vocational training.
Schools will be asked to make a special effort to provide academic and vocational counselling for students.
These measures will be included in a joint action plan developed by MELS and the school boards to increase access to vocational training for students under 20. This plan will be implemented in the 2010-2011 school year.
Training in a trade or occupation and continuing in general education
Financial support will be offered to assist students and teachers in educational paths that include both vocational training and general education. General education enables students to acquire the prerequisites needed for the selected vocational training program.
In school boards, the paths combining vocational training and general education will be more broadly implemented so that more students under 20 years of age can have access to them and obtain their diplomas.
Bridges between training programs
The recent adoption of temporary bridges enables a student enrolled in a training program leading to a semiskilled trade (for example, butcher’s assistant) to gain access to certain vocational training programs leading to a skilled trade (for example, butcher).
Close links will be established among all the education sectors within the same school board (general education in the youth sector, vocational training and adult general education) so that young people can more easily transfer from one sector to another.
More services to support success
MELS and the school boards will work to better identify the complementary educational services required for students under 20 years of age in vocational training and will adopt measures aimed at increasing access to these services.
New approaches with the workplace
Emploi-Québec and the business community will develop new approaches to training in response to labour shortages. These could involve short-term training, training focusing on work-studies balance or online training.
Within the framework of the Pacte pour l’emploi, young people under 20 who are unemployed and able to work can receive assistance to acquire qualifications or a training supplement to enter the job market.
School boards have met the challenge of offering vocational training programs to students while they are still completing their secondary education. Students spend some days in a high school or adult education centre pursuing their general education, and others in one of the vocational training centres, according to their chosen occupation.