The Prince George of Cambridge has one important advantage over the Prince George of British Columbia: youth. The young prince has it, but this city, and most of the northern region, is losing it.
Since the late 1990s, registrations in northern B.C. school districts have plummeted by more than 20,000 students - a drop of more than 40 per cent.
This is occurring against a backdrop of anticipated economic growth in the region, predictions of huge labour market expansion and massive retirements among the baby boomers.
In response, there have been vocal calls for greater participation in the trades but let's face it, we need everything: electricians, plumbers, nurses, environmental scientists, engineers, computer programmers. If the decline in the number of school-aged children is any indication, there will be fewer people in our region to do all of these jobs.
In a few months, we'll host nearly 3,000 athletes for the Canada Winter Games. Yes, they're coming for a sporting event and we should do everything we can do to ensure they have a good experience. But for the good of our community and region over the long-term, we should also do everything we can to entice them to come back: for school, for work, for life. We have everything they could possibly want.
Chief among the assets of this community are the college and university. CNC and UNBC have demonstrated that their graduates choose to live and work in Prince George and the north. In fact, 75 per cent of the post-secondary graduates working in northern B.C. now annually come from UNBC and the three northern colleges: CNC, Northern Lights College, and Northwest Community College.
Clearly, the vast majority of the skilled, qualified people our region needs will come from these institutions. But they're limited in their capacity. Together, they account for only five per cent of B.C.'s post-secondary seats.
To address these challenges - declining numbers of youth and limited educational capacity - we need to work together.
It's not like we haven't overcome the odds before, and succeeded in spectacular fashion. The Northern Medical Program is a great example of how we all worked together to create something that the region desperately needed. These are still early days for the program but I have no doubt it will change the region forever. Today is my 22nd anniversary of being a UNBC employee and I've seen that the kind of work that leads to creative solutions like the NMP happens every day. Countless exchanges between professors, researchers, students, and local residents have answered questions, provided new expertise, improved quality of life, or inspired new products. And then there are the 11,000 graduates. Individually, they may not have the same impact as the NMP but I similarly have no doubt that, in their own ways, they will change the region forever.
Ultimately, isn't this a big part of the reason why UNBC exists in the first place? This was the future that 16,000 people imagined when they joined the Interior University Society and, together with every city, town, First Nation and school district, formed a common cause to have our own university. Northerners were united in the belief that creating UNBC would be the best thing they could do for the next generation (often their own children) and the sustainability of their communities.
The "next generation" is here. The UNBC 25th anniversary celebrations begin in three weeks. One of the activities that will occur over the coming year was proposed by Tom Steadman and Myron Sambad, two UNBC founders who were integral to the original public campaign for signatures. They initiated an idea to connect with as many of the 16,000 as possible to capture their stories of why they joined in the public campaign and what UNBC has meant for them. UNBC has the list of petition-signers online for the first time at www.unbc.ca/25. Are you on the list? Visit that page and tell us your story, receive our thanks, and make sure you're invited to various anniversary events and celebrations. Already, we're finding petition-signers who have since had children or grand-children graduate.
The torch now passes to those beneficiaries. Some of them weren't even born when their parent or grand-parent became one of the 16,000 but they have come to benefit from the actions of others by obtaining UNBC degrees. As the North comes to grips with a striking decline in the number of youth, our educational institutions are part of the solution. They enable our youth to realize their potential and truly participate in regional development while also attracting young people from elsewhere. It has been 25 years, and we've really only just begun.
-- Robert van Adrichem, vice-president external relations for UNBC.
