Questions arise over tech pilot in schools
A pilot project to give Nova Scotia students a leg up on tech careers will not accept more students after the current cohort moves through.
The Technology Advancement Program – which was announced last year with much fanfare and started in September – offered participating Grade 9 students in feeder schools for Cole Harbour, J.L. Ilsley and Yarmouth Consolidated high schools a chance to develop skills aiming toward a career in the tech sector. As the students progressed through the upper grades, the pilot, partnering with IBM Canada, could take six years to complete.
But teachers in the program have been told it's being discontinued. Paul Wozney, president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union, said in a telephone interview that he had confirmation from both a junior high teacher and a high school lead.
"I spoke directly with a teacher at a Cole Harbour High School feeder school and they confirmed that their principal informed them verbally that the program will sort of cease to run after this school year, that the kids that are in the program this year will finish and then it will sort of cease," Wozney said. "There will be no further iterations of it past this year."
When asked to confirm if the program was cancelled, a spokeswoman for the Education Department initially said "no," but after the NSTU information came out, Chrissy Matheson said in an email that the department will evaluate the program before any decisions are made on future cohorts.
"That was always the intention," the email said. "We will continue to learn from the unique experiences that these students have had, and look for opportunities to scale facets of the program and to apply key learnings to other aspects of the public-school program."
Wozney said the way the news came out raises troubling questions of transparency, especially for a pilot that was given a big launch, with a $2-million budget and big expectations.
"It was (going to) transform the futures of 80 students and position them for a career in the tech sector," Wozney said. "A lot of effort went into championing this as a really important development in public education. It was going to have a major impact and kind of set a pathway forward in terms of partnership with the private sector and public school.
"So contrast that ... to the way that the program being closed down is happening. Officially, the EECD appears to be denying that the program is being brought to a close, whereas education entities - it's running in HRCE and TriCounty RCE - employees of those RCEs are delivering messages that hey, once this group of kids goes through, that's it, there will be no more."
He said there's been no indication of why the program will be discontinued, no data, no criteria cited, no consultation with the teachers, and no information on how much of the budget has been spent.
"In the days of publicly elected school boards, that news would have had to be approved and vetting by elected trustees and now that those people are gone, it appears that these decisions can just go through without any scrutiny, or any accountability, or any transparency," Wozney said
There could be a justifiable rationale for the decision, he said, but it's not being communicated. He feels it's owed to the communities that were looking at the program as an opportunity for the future.
The program was installed in communities with significant African Nova Scotian populations, he said, with Ross Road School and Sir Robert Borden Junior High feeding into Cole Harbour High, Rockingstone Heights School, Elizabeth Sullivan School, Cunard Junior High and Herring Cove Junior High feeding into J.L. Ilsley, and Maple Grove Education Centre feeding into Yarmouth Consolidated.
Claudia Chender, education critic for the NDP, said the timing of the decision is "interesting" because she was asking Education Minister
Zach Churchill directly about the program during provincial budget estimates sessions.
"There was no indication in our conversation that the program was ending but I've also heard from teachers that they had been verbally instructed that this will be the last cohort," Chender said.
She said there's no evidence the program will produce tech-savvy grads for the labour market.
"It's never been used in a Canadian public school and where it was used in the United States, it was used to curb low graduation rates. So the intent of the program was to bring up graduation rates where it was implemented, I think it was Brooklyn, and it did that, apparently, but that's not why we're using it here."
She planned to ask Churchill further questions about the program. Tory education critic Tim Halman planned to do the same after hearing about the program discontinuation.
He said after teaching for 13 years, he saw just how important technology and going into technological professions are important to young people.
"Obviously, we've been emphasizing early 21st century technology in our school system and that was a good announcement," Halman said on Wednesday. "I think there's a lot of disappointment right now. The minister needs to clarify why this has happened, (and) provide some answers.
"This is a symptom of (this) government, when you ask very specific questions, you get very convoluted answers and it's extremely frustrating to Nova Scotians."
Meg Nair, communications and citizenship lead with IBM Canada, said in an email that the company is "hopeful that the government will look to intake another cohort in the future."