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Pathway to Success
How the SHSM program introduces students and industry partners to possibilities BY CHRISTINE D. LeBLANC
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hat do you want to be when you grow up? It’s a big question, and it becomes particularly important as students approach their final years of high school. At the same time, where to find a qualified workforce is an important question for industry. A provincial program supported by the Ministry of Education, delivered through school boards and local high schools, helps both the future employee and employer. The Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) program allows students to tailor their high school experience to their interests and individual learning styles. Students can focus their learning on a specific sector in the workforce while getting the credits they need to graduate, then receive the SHSM designation on their diploma. The program also helps them transition to employment, apprenticeship, college or university after graduation. “I really see the heartbeat of SHSM is having these authentic opportunities with industry partners. It also helps us support teachers in a new way of delivering curriculum, without it being just about the textbooks,” says Lydia Hamilton, SHSM board lead for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) and the co-chair of the Eastern Regional SHSM Board Leads. The 19 sectors available include manufacturing, construction and food processing. SHSM helps students gain industryrecognized certifications and training relevant to their future careers. Whether students are heading towards the workplace, an apprenticeship, college or university, the SHSM program helps them customize their high school experience so they can explore and get a hands-on taste of their options. The Ottawa Catholic School Board has manufacturing programs at All Saints and Notre Dame high schools. As All Saints student Connor Lynch says, “SHSM will help me plan my future career because it brings the opportunity to do co-op placements. These placements give students a chance to find a job that is right for them.
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Micah Hurley from All Saints High School learning glass blowing skills at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories I’m hoping to do my co-op over the summer in the trades. As I explore manufacturing, I’m learning what interests me and what doesn’t, which will help me make decisions later in life.”
Journey to a career
Even if students choose not to pursue their choice, it’s an easier, quicker and less expensive way to explore their options than enrolling in a post-secondary program, for example. Those who do continue are more likely to complete college or university, because they know it’s what they want to do. “A career path is not what it used to be,” Hamilton says, when the goal was to get a good job and stay at one company for life. Instead, people are evolving and crossing sectors. “It’s not always a straight road, it’s more of a journey,” she says, and students see that. Students going home and sharing their
experiences with their parents helps both generations see there are many ways to live and make a career. Parents may encourage traditional roles like doctor or lawyer, but with SHSM they are introduced to a great range of opportunities that can be just as beneficial and lucrative for their children. The SHSM program focuses on experiential learning combined with developing a mindset suitable for 21st century careers. The program fosters design thinking, showing students how to go from an idea to a complete product and beyond. It’s that kind of thinking, Hamilton says, that inspires business and innovation. “We need creative problemsolvers.”
Manufacturers of the future
Manufacturers may not have considered that “students are the consumers and workforce of the future,” she says. Stu-
