Windsor not at top of higher education heap in Canada
The Windsor area still lags behind the province and the nation when it comes to advancing the education of its workforce beyond high school, according to the latest Statistics Canada figures.
Almost 30 per cent of residents in the Windsor census metropolitan area aged 25 to 64 list a high school diploma or equivalency certificate as their highest educational attainment versus 23.7 per cent nationally and 24.5 per cent provincially.
That’s according to 2016 data released Wednesday by the federal agency covering such survey areas as education, labour, journey to work, language of work and mobility and migration.
Targeting that educational gap is just one of the priorities identified by Frazier Fathers, the manager of community impact for the United Way/Centraide Windsor-Essex County.
“When you have a higher number of high school-only level of educational attainment, that’s where you hear this story about the skills gaps and a jobs gap in our workforce,” Fathers said.
“That’s part of the story right there. They don’t have the educational attainment levels,” he said. “That’s why it’s so important to get young people into a position where they can go on to post-secondary education, so they can get a good paying job down the road.”
Overall, the data culled from last year’s census shows that 54 per cent of Canadians aged 25-64 have either college or university qualifications.
“Education is a key pathway to financial sustainability and security,” Fathers said. “We need to close the gap, lower the number of people in our community with just a high school diploma and raise the number, whether it’s in skilled trades, college or university, because in previous censuses there was clear data that linked educational attainment with income.”
The data showed 26.3 per cent of the local population list a college diploma as their highest educational attainment while 26 per cent list a university degree.
Fathers said the United Way will spend months “drilling down” the data as it applies at the neighbourhood level in Windsor and Essex County.
“This is foundational data for our community,” he said. “It’s a vital tool. This answers some of the basic questions, and now we can say what are the hot spots in our community, what are the challenge areas as a community that we have to try and tackle?”
The data released Wednesday also showed that 86 per cent of local residents drive to work while only 3.4 per cent use public transit within an area defined as the census metropolitan area, which includes Windsor, LaSalle, Tecumseh and Lakeshore. That’s compared to 14.6 per cent using public transit provincially and 12.4 per cent nationally.
Within the six mid-sized CMAs identified by Statistics Canada, Windsor’s — with a population of 330,000 — had the second-shortest average commute time at 18.9 minutes. Among all 35 CMAs, Windsor had the seventh-shortest commute.
“So that could be part of the explanation,” said Emmanuelle Bourbeau, a StatsCan transportation expert.
Bourbeau said the census does not take into account the availability or frequency of public transit service which could also affect usage.
In looking at labour, the statistics showed more people are working past 65. Nearly one in five Canadians are working past 65 which is almost double the figure from 1995.