Post-Secondary Education in Canada - Essay Example

Introduction

As far as this essay is concerned, the topic of research remains to be post-secondary education in Canada. When we talk of post-secondary education, we refer to a general term that describes the education that takes place after high school. In our context here, in Canada, post-secondary education refers to university or college education. Not only in Canada, in every other nation is post-secondary education portrayed to have the most significant impact on the employment structure of the country. Education and labour are very crucial tools in the structures of society. Therefore, for this essay, I will focus on discussing various aspects and concepts that relate to employment and post-secondary education in Canada. For instance, I will strengthen this essay by discussing different course theories and concepts that relate to my topic of study. Some of these concepts would include linking Canadian residential schools with the lads in the learning labour by arguing that the more qualifications one gets from post-secondary education in Canada, the more likely he/she is to acquiring or achieving better jobs.

The essay will also discuss how post-secondary education in Canada leads to social reproduction, offer a good explanation of human capital and how it is related to post-secondary education in Canada.Focusing on the theory that students with more excellent grades and qualifications thrive well than those with reduced requirements, I will discuss social mobility and social capital in Canada and how they are associated with meritocracy. The effects of education on social status, social mobility, social capital and cultural capital will be well discussed. Finally, the essay will discuss the teacher's work and unionism in the post-secondary education system in Canada.

The first concept I will re-discuss about in this essay is that, and I will connect Canadian residential schools with the lads in the learning labour by arguing that the more qualifications one gets from post-secondary education in Canada, the more likely he/she is to acquiring or achieving better jobs. The more one indeed has post-education qualifications determines his/her possibility of getting better jobs in Canada. With poor education qualifications, one is unlikely to secure employment and especially good-paying jobs in this region. Poor education qualifications have been seen to expose people in low paying jobs despite the sector you are involved in. In the governmental areas, agricultural industries, medical sectors, economic sectors and any other sector above-average pass mark, which is a high education qualification is considered essential.

With that fact, it is clear that education achievements are directly the most significant determinants of the kind of job one would secure in Canada. For instance, post-secondary courses like medicine degrees, nursing degrees, engineering degrees, computer science and business degrees are ranked the top most paying in Canada. This implies that the more qualifications you have in a particular field of study, the more likely you are to be employed in such career lines in Canada. These are the disciplines that require high post-education achievements, and that is the reason they are considered to have the highest salaries after graduation. All these fields require specialists and hence poor higher education achievements cannot expose one to such jobs in Canada.

The Canadian government has made post-education one of the priorities in its budgets. Due to public education jurisdictions education in distinct provinces in Canada is different. There exist long histories of education inequality in Canada. There have been significant works towards the equality of education when public schools were initiated and which were occupied by both whites and the aboriginal societies. This was aimed at ensuring that a considerable population of post-secondary students achieve or are capable of securing jobs regardless of where they got their education.

Although from our course work I find some of the aspects about labour and education that challenge the concept that states that, "The more you have post-education qualifications the more likelihood of one to secure better paying jobs in Canada." One of the challenging aspects of that statement would be the CBC piece regarding the documentary, "Generation Jobless," which argues that there are many graduates from universities who cannot achieve better employment in Canada. Generation Jobless literature bears a lot of facts about figures as a considerable population of university graduates in Canada is now not working. If working, the majority of them are serving in less quality employment ranks. The CBC design means the Competency-Based Curriculum. This is one documentary that has highly challenged the statement that says, "The more qualifications one achieves in educations increases his/her possibilities of acquiring better or quality jobs in Canada." This statement seems not to hold anymore as there are thousands of thousands of students who have already graduated from big tertiary institutions in Canada and yet could not find those quality jobs in the labour market.

People are still dwelling in that perception that universities and colleges are meant to prepare students for careers and reality that to some extend very different now. Higher education is just learning for learnings and nothing more. Students pursue their degrees in Universities, but after they finish, they just feel it is like they were owed something they never received. Most of the students complete their degrees for the first time in Canada, they don't know how to transform the skills crafted during post-secondary education into paychecks. And most of them end up not achieving their dreams, to secure quality jobs in the labour market of Canada. This has been much evident in the labour market of Canada, and hence it makes higher education qualifications in Canada not necessarily the determinants of one's employment.

There is also social reproduction theory learned in class that I would like to re-discuss in this essay. I will discuss how post-secondary education in Canada leads to social reproduction (Au, 2018). Social reproduction is the process in which society reproduces itself from one generation to another in terms of social structures within generations. In this section, I will explain how post-education, as an absolute precondition, maintains the continuation of social relations existing among Canadian societies. Even though education seems equal throughout Canada, aboriginal communities still encounter some mistreatments in school, in work and other societal aspects.

For example, initially, there was a policy that forced children from aboriginal societies to attend schools, and this was perceived as a cultural genocide in Canada. This is one concept that explains Willis differences and cultural views towards education (Willis, 1977). From research done by Willis, students from working-class backgrounds had no positive education perception. These students perceived schools as a place where they should pass their time before starting to work in industries which deserved no post-secondary educational achievements. This means these learners were usually against their instructors. With such education perception, these students would not have high educational qualifications and hence, fell under working-class jobs in industries. This makes education become one of the tools of social reproduction in Canada since the qualification level is determined by the employment of specific groups.

Education is a social reproduction tool that determines how one's contribution towards the community regardless of whether it is socially or economically. For example, from my research, Canada is one of the most capitalistic economies, and in this country, educational qualifications are one aspect of the contribution to social and economic growth. This implies that those students who end up getting poor grades to end up being the most disadvantaged in such type of commercial setting.

Another concept I would like to explain more in-depth is that of human capital in Canada. I will offer a good explanation of social capital and how it is related to post-secondary education in Canada. Focusing on the theory that students with more excellent grades and qualifications thrive well than those with reduced requirements, I will discuss social mobility and social capital in Canada and how they are associated with meritocracy. The essay will explain how the function of social capital, family background, and other hindrances to social mobility is not meritocracy or a society where wealth income and social status are distributed through competition in education. The term human capital can be defined as the stock of habits, personality and social factors and the knowledge capability in performing labour for value economically (Xie, 2015).

To me, post-secondary education in Canada can be determined as human capital. In this nation, most of the entities and organizations have been seen investing in human labour through training and educating to advance their employees' productivity and level of their quality. This now makes higher education to be a kind of human capital. This is because education directly increases people's productivity, prosperity and enrichment of their life experiences. Thus, education not only contributes towards growth personally but also the development of social status in general. For a society comprising of highly trained or educated human capital, this results in the creation of social groups that lead to the growth of the community. Hence, that is called social capital because of the interrelationships created among those groups resulting in straightening and commonality of societies. Another example of human capital is cultural capital. This is because educations lead to useful skills and knowledge, which are necessary aspects of cultural capital.

Based on the above concept, social networks and culture have immense value towards human capital growth. All of the above attributes help people acquire social status in society. Therefore, human capital quality in Canada is determined or measured in terms of educational qualifications one has achieved in post-secondary education, and it is very evident that every form of company or entity seeks the above aspects in their workers. Societies with low educational qualifications from higher education institutions in Canada are viewed to possess little human capital and hence are not preferable by the companies seeking employees (Stonechild, 2016).

Despite that, other researchers like Marxists have distinct opinions towards education meritocracy I perceive education is meritocratic. For example, this shows that education in a good background where all students are offered the same opportunities in learning institutions, they rank themselves depending on their hard work (Sensoy, 2017). For the learners with hard-working capabilities, they end up getting better qualifications and in future may acquire better-paying jobs in the community. This has been vividly portrayed in the Canadian education system, especially post-secondary education and its relation to employment in the country. It is because of the Canadian's capitalistic status employment and work is based on qualification. Only the students with high requirements land into well-paying jobs compared to those with poor qualifications I Canadian labour markets. Hence, with this, I can prove that education is meritocratic and sorts distinct people into their correct groups depending on the knowledge, skills and qualifications in education they have in a particular society.

In the Canadian economy, social mobility appears to be driven by education qualifications one has. Education makes individuals change from their social class or status to better class within society. For example, someone from a working-class can further education to more qualifications and with that he/she will have changed personal class or status within a particular group or society. For such aspects, I opt that the harder I work in studies, the more probability that I will achieve good qualifications and hence the kind of job I will secure will depend on these qualifications. I perceive that qualifications will progress to be very pertinent in future more than they are now. And that is because of globalization which results in a more capitalistic state of the Canadian economy.

Therefore, education background will hold to be the only path to securing employment in the Canadian labour market. In this current globalization, human capital, social capital and cultural capital improvements are the primary ideologies while leading to a more positive social reproduction. Consequently, because of the ruling situation, the only way to modify this concept is by achieving good qualifications in education. This is as a result of human capital being currently the determinant of labour quality in the Canadian labour market.

The theory of social capital applies an example of first-generation college students. It describes how social capital and Grit all influence the prosperity of FGCS. From the research, it was realized that students' average grades were predicted by their social capital while the two elements of Grit, the perseverance of effort consistency did not contribute in any way. A social capital stable learner benefits from information, and support from the social network and the adequate resources offered by the school towards their prosperity in post-secondary education as outlined from the theory. There is a better argument established by Jean Anyon in her article, "Social Class and Hidden Curriculum Work." (Anyon, 1980). From this article, it is claimed that better educational qualifications place one in different future jobs opportunities. These qualifications result in differences in human capital quality and hence, result in social reproductions of distinct societies of people. This is very common in the Canadian system of education and how it relates to personal labour.

The last aspect I would like to discuss is the teachers' work/unionism in the Canadian system of education. I will discuss the teacher's work and unionism in the post-secondary education system in Canada. This will explain how teachers have influenced the relationship between education and labour in the Canadian nation (Rottmann, 2018). Teachers are another aspect that determines the quality of labour in Canada. This is because teachers unions occasionally vote for education reforms that are aimed at ensuring students achieve better qualifications in their education. Such education reforms favour the students and set proper conditions for every learner to thrive well in his/her studies. Thus, this has contributed to social mobility in Canada as most of higher education institutions produce high qualified workers to the economy of Canada. Therefore, this confirms that the teacher's role is also pertinent in determining the quality of education students get.

Conclusion

In conclusion, education is the main factor that determines how people perceive work. Similarly, education is a meritocratic tool that puts people in distinct classes determined by the employment acquired because of higher education qualifications. Therefore, better education qualifications better the human capital that further results in the development of society. In this current globalized world, individuals and especially students must put more efforts in education to be able to achieve great qualifications that contribute to social mobility and cultural capital groups that contribute to commonality with the community to facilitate the development of the society. Hence, it is the responsibility of the government to ensure that it offers equality in education systems for equal opportunities to the students regardless of their social class. This will assist all the learners in achieving better qualifications in higher education and within the capitalistic nation like Canada. Human capital has been addressed as the greatest contributor to the growth of the economy, and therefore, Canada aims at good labour that can lead to such advancements.

The Canadian government has made post-education one of the priorities in its budgets. Due to public education jurisdictions education in distinct provinces in Canada is different. There exist long histories of education inequality in Canada. There have been significant works towards the equality of education when public schools were initiated and which were occupied by both whites and the aboriginal societies. This was aimed at ensuring that a considerable population of post-secondary students achieve or are capable of securing jobs regardless of where they got their education.

Although from our course work I find some of the aspects about labour and education that challenge the concept that states that, "The more you have post-education qualifications the more likelihood of one to secure better paying jobs in Canada." One of the challenging aspects of that statement would be the CBC piece regarding the documentary, "Generation Jobless," which argues that there are many graduates from universities who cannot achieve better employment in Canada. Generation Jobless literature bears a lot of facts about figures as a considerable population of university graduates in Canada is now not working. If working, the majority of them are serving in less quality employment ranks. The CBC design means the Competency-Based Curriculum. This is one documentary that has highly challenged the statement that says, "The more qualifications one achieves in educations increases his/her possibilities of acquiring better or quality jobs in Canada." This statement seems not to hold anymore as there are thousands of thousands of students who have already graduated from big tertiary institutions in Canada and yet could not find those quality jobs in the labour market.

People are still dwelling in that perception that universities and colleges are meant to prepare students for careers and reality that to some extend very different now. Higher education is just learning for learnings and nothing more. Students pursue their degrees in Universities, but after they finish, they just feel it is like they were owed something they never received. Most of the students complete their degrees for the first time in Canada, they don't know how to transform the skills crafted during post-secondary education into paychecks. And most of them end up not achieving their dreams, to secure quality jobs in the labour market of Canada. This has been much evident in the labour market of Canada, and hence it makes higher education qualifications in Canada not necessarily the determinants of one's employment.

There is also social reproduction theory learned in class that I would like to re-discuss in this essay. I will discuss how post-secondary education in Canada leads to social reproduction (Au, 2018). Social reproduction is the process in which society reproduces itself from one generation to another in terms of social structures within generations. In this section, I will explain how post-education, as an absolute precondition, maintains the continuation of social relations existing among Canadian societies. Even though education seems equal throughout Canada, aboriginal communities still encounter some mistreatments in school, in work and other societal aspects.

For example, initially, there was a policy that forced children from aboriginal societies to attend schools, and this was perceived as a cultural genocide in Canada. This is one concept that explains Willis differences and cultural views towards education (Willis, 1977). From research done by Willis, students from working-class backgrounds had no positive education perception. These students perceived schools as a place where they should pass their time before starting to work in industries which deserved no post-secondary educational achievements. This means these learners were usually against their instructors. Read More