Preparing Students for a Labour Market That Values GenAI Skills

Authors: Miha Isik and Elizabeth Agoe Public access to Generative AI (GenAI) tools and software, such as ChatGPT, introduce new opportunities in the workplace. Both employers and employees expect the use of GenAI to increase in the workforce. This highlights the need for workers to expand their skillset and workplaces to adapt their processes to […]

Navigating the Transition From School to Work: The Impact of Career Development Activities and Services on Graduate Labour Market Outcomes

Navigating the Transition From School to Work: The Impact of Career Development Activities and Services on Graduate Labour Market Outcomes was written by Ken Chatoor, Hagar Effah, Haleemah Shah and Amy Kaufman, Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. Experiential learning, networking, and institutional support services are pivotal in graduates’ transition from school to the workforce. […]

HEQCO Skills Consortium Final Meeting

In May 2021, HEQCO announced a call for proposals to create a consortium that would evaluate programs or interventions relating to the acquisition, development and/or articulation of transferable skills. Over the last two years, we have funded seven projects that sought to cultivate one or more in-demand, transferable skills such as numeracy, leadership, time management […]

Teaching Transferable Skills for Labour Market Success: Introducing HEQCO’s Skills Consortium

Having identified essential transferable skills (and how to measure them) in previous work, HEQCO sought to investigate the most effective ways of teaching them. To do so, we partnered with eight PSE institutions to form a Skills Consortium, designed to evaluate programs and interventions related to the acquisition, development and articulation of transferable skills — […]

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Ontario Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Ontario First-year Postsecondary Students in 2020–21

Ontario Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Ontario First-year Postsecondary Students in 2020–21 was written by Jeffrey Napierala, Natalie Pilla, Jackie Pichette & Julia Colyar, Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. A study of the first cohort to enter postsecondary during the pandemic reveals consistent challenges and key recommendations A study of students who […]

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Jackie Pichette, Dua Abdelqader and Mona Eghanian — Unlike cars, microcredentials won’t drive themselves

Microcredentials are a form of focused learning with the potential to respond to both the modern hiring needs of employers and the training needs of adults looking to advance or pivot in the labour market. At HEQCO, we define them as being tied to short learning opportunities that are focused on a discrete set of […]

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Janice Deakin and Julia Colyar — Introducing the new HEQCO Research Roadmap

Our appointments as CEO and Vice President just over a year ago turned out to be coincident with many things, some anticipated and others not! The need to develop a new strategic research framework to guide HEQCO’s activities for the next three years was top of mind for us; however the path to completion was […]

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Janice Deakin, Julia Colyar & Jackie Pichette — Microcredentials: Short, focused learning that responds to emerging demands

The microcredential landscape is evolving quickly. Since HEQCO began researching the topic in early 2020, the Ontario government has  dedicated close to $60 million for a micro-credential strategy that includes new programs, an online portal and a public awareness campaign. In March, the government announced that it was expanding eligibility for Ontario student loans and […]

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Jackie Pichette – Survey of Canadians reinforces need for clear, standard definition of “microcredential”

Micro mania — that’s what we called the mix of excitement and uncertainty brewing around microcredentials in Ontario last Spring. Since then, HEQCO partnered with the Business + Higher Education Roundtable (BHER) to help address some of the uncertainty surrounding microcredentials.  We’re building an evidence base that anyone from the college, university or government sectors can draw from […]