Conestoga celebrates 50 years, big impact
WATERLOO REGION — Fifty years after it was founded, nobody does education like Conestoga College.
The Kitchener-based community college with 13,000 full-time students says it has educated or trained slightly more than half of all adults across the Waterloo-Wellington area. That’s 294,685 people who have graduated from programs, continuing education, and corporate training.
The college says almost half the area’s workforce, 193,026 people, has been educated in some way at Conestoga. Local college graduates collectively earn at least $2.3 billion a year.
“Conestoga is at the centre of the community’s economic life,” said University of Waterloo economist Larry Smith, hired by Conestoga to assess its impact in a new report called Conestoga: Adapting for Prosperity II.
Despite this, the college knows there’s more to do in a region that has not traditionally prized education, has lost factory jobs, has tumbled out of Canada’s Top 10 for household income, and needs better-educated workers to compete.
Conestoga must engage better with local schools that are below the Ontario average in standardized tests and graduation, Conestoga president John Tibbits said in an interview.
“I think it’s a big issue. I think it’s something we need to work on as a community,” he said, citing concerns about students’ math and literacy skills.
“I think we need to start to understand that from the very beginning, from preschool to elementary school and all the way up, we need to put significant effort into making sure that we’re succeeding,” Tibbits said. “The stronger the school boards are, the stronger we become, I feel.”
He raised his concerns with civic leaders who attended a Tuesday luncheon to celebrate 50 years of Conestoga education. “You can’t come out of high school and just expect to get a job. It’s a tough world out there.”
To make this point with future students, Conestoga released a slick promotional video that recreates the famous minute-long introduction to the “Game of Thrones” dramatic series. Conestoga graduate Gary Cain crafted it. The college hopes it will resonate with young students and with their parents, while making the point that education is the future.
“We can’t do what we have done in the past,” Smith told civic leaders, pointing to innovation and communication as top skills of the future.