The Globe and Mail – SIMONA CHIOSE
“Veronika Irvine graduated from university with a master’s degree in computational chemistry, but she ended up in computer science. It was the mid-1990s, and she was armed with one course in the field and a relative in the industry. “At that time, there weren’t that many computer science graduates, so it was much easier to find a job,” said Ms. Irvine, who is now studying for a PhD in the subject at the University of Victoria. She landed at Bell-Northern Research (BNR), which eventually became part of Nortel Networks. “We used to call BNR the training ground. … They had amazing courses internal to the company. When I started, there was a whole new paradigm of object-oriented [computer] programming that was not covered by many courses in university. But BNR wanted to use it and they trained us,” Ms. Irvine said. The world where Ms. Irvine worked for more than a decade, where firms invested heavily in educating employees, has been in decline, says a new report from the Council of Canadian Academies to be released on Thursday morning. It cites figures showing that, since 1993, Canadian employers have decreased investment in basic training per employee by 40 per cent. And in recent years, industry and governments have said Canada’s trailing global performance in innovation and productivity is due to shortages of skills in science, technology, engineering and math, commonly known as STEM fields.”(more)