More health career courses offered to high school students

Edmonton... Starting this fall, Alberta high school students from 10 school jurisdictions will be able to explore more health services courses under a revised Career and Technology Studies (CTS) program.

“This project will create opportunities for students to develop an interest in and work toward post-secondary certifications in health occupations while they are still in high school,” said Education Minister Dave Hancock. “By opening new doors for students, we hope to positively impact high school completion rates and potentially increase the pool of qualified workers in Alberta’s health services field.”

Paving Health Pathways: A Health Services Strategy is a pilot project that will help Alberta Education validate health services courses such as Medical Sciences, Health Care Aide, Sports Medicine, Pre Hospital Care and Early Childhood Assistant.

Health courses are part of the Health, Recreation and Human Services programming under the revised CTS program. In total, five new areas of programming, each with a set of course-related pathways, will be phased in, provincewide, beginning this September. The health pathway includes close to 60 health courses.

Last October, school boards were asked to submit project proposals that align with the Health Services Strategy. From the submissions, 10 project sites plus two support boards were selected. The participating school jurisdictions will pilot select courses in the first year and move to full implementation and validation of the health services courses in year two and three.  The three-year project is supported by $12 million in one-time funding from the Alberta government.

“The entire CTS program of studies has been revised to be more deliberate and structured in an effort to enhance opportunities for students in areas like health services and hopefully lead them to discover their passion,” said Hancock.

The Health Services Strategy will enable the project sites, Alberta Education and other partners to:

• Provide students opportunities to experiment with health career courses.
• Verify that the health services pathway and its courses will provide students the skills and knowledge they need to pursue a career in health services.
• Verify that the content of health services courses is meeting the needs of teachers. 
• Identify the knowledge, skills and attributes required to deliver health services pathways.
• Provide career development supports (i.e., career counsellor, career practitioner).
• Identify specialized equipment required to deliver health care pathways.
• Identify promising practices for sustainability of effective delivery of health services pathways (professional development, partnerships).
• Identify and verify learning resources.

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