GRANT STORY - THE ART OF LEARNING
The learning never has to stop from the day you are born to the day you die. Creating opportunities to learn in school, on the job or just to satisfy our curiosity enhances the quality of our lives, and can also stimulate the economy. And who knows where new knowledge and skills will take you? For four weeks this summer, First Nations teens with artistic inclinations had the opportunity to participate in Emily Carr’s Summer Institute for Aboriginal Teens, thanks in part to a $13,000 grant from Vancouver Foundation. Getting in the door is the first step to removing cultural and financial barriers. The idea is that once Aboriginal teens have a taste of art, media or design, they come back for more, and who knows where that will lead?
DATA
Nearly 80% of residents are online
The Internet is a fundamental tool for learning. In metro Vancouver, 78% of residents were able to access the Internet in 2007, up 11% from 2005, and 74% had Internet access from their home. Source
More people completing high school
Historically, the proportion of metro Vancouver residents who have not completed high school has been decreasing. Between 2001 and 2006, that rate dropped from 19% to 17% and is below the national average of 23%. Source
Over half of residents read the paper
Reading the newspaper is one form of informal, life-long learning. A 2007 study found 52% of metro Vancouver adults read a newspaper on the average weekday and 73% read one issue between Monday and Friday. More (78%) said they had read an online or printed edition of a daily newspaper in the past week. While long-term metro Vancouver data was not available, weekly newspaper readership nationally has remained relatively constant since 2003. Source
Over half have higher education
In 2006, 56% of metro Vancouverites 15 years and over had completed some kind of post-secondary education, which includes apprenticeships, college and university. This rate increased from 49% in 2001, and was 10% higher than the national average. The rates in Calgary, Toronto, and Montréal were similar. Source
Business and engineering most commonly studied
We need to know what residents of metro Vancouver are studying in order to assess whether our graduates will meet the current and future economic needs of employers.
In 2005, 22% of our residents with post-secondary education studied business, including management and public administration. Another 20% studied engineering, which includes architecture and related technologies, while 13% had backgrounds in health and fitness, and 12% studied social and behavioural sciences and law.
Significant gender imbalances remained: 36% of men with post-secondary education had studied engineering, compared to 4% of women. Only 3% of men studied education, compared to 10% of women. Source
Kids beat the odds in some neighbourhoods
Early childhood development is often tied to a neighbourhood’s socio-economic status. The higher this status, the better children usually learn. However, this prediction does not hold true in 15 of metro Vancouver’s 184 neighbourhoods.
Nine neighbourhoods report that their kindergarten students are doing better than expected when considering their socioeconomic status. On the flip side, six higher socio-economic neighbourhoods are reporting that their children are struggling more than would be predicted. Understanding the reasons behind these differences could help all metro Vancouver kids learn better. Source
Overall learning on par
The Composite Learning Index (CLI) is a national index that combines a number of indicators that measure the state of learning in our schools, homes, workplaces and other places in our communities. A high CLI score means the city has learning conditions that support social and economic success.
Our region’s score dropped to 78 in 2008 from 82 in 2007, after a seven point increase from 2006 to 2007. However, metro Vancouver is on par with the national average of 77. Source
