Magazine helps students plan for their futures

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High school students in northern Saskatchewan have a new tool at their disposal to help them make plans for their post-secondary education.

Relevance is a 32-page magazine filled with information to help students choose a career path and determine what education and training they need to reach their goals. A detailed career planning guide lists a variety of jobs, outlining what each entails, what the average salary is and what education and training is required. Tips on filling out job applications, creating resumes and finding sources of funding to help pay for post-secondary studies are also included within the pages of Relevance.

The magazine also includes profiles of students and former students who talk about the education and career paths they've chosen.

A total of 50,000 copies of the magazine have been published and are being distributed to school divisions across northern Saskatchewan.

According to Vince Hill, principal of the Prince Albert Grand Council's (PAGC) Credenda virtual high school and co-ordinator for the Relevance project, creating the magazine was the brainchild of former PAGC grand chief Gary Merasty, who is now the Member of Parliament for the Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River riding.

"As chief, he had brought together all the post-secondary institutions to work together and collaborate on how they could best deliver their programs to the north. And as a part of the process it came about that maybe we're not reaching our students quite well enough and we need to do something to make some connections for our students to see the career opportunities that are available out there and then to link them to the institutions," he said.

The magazine has been received favourably by students in the north, Hill said, sharing the experience of one student from Wesmore community high school in Prince Albert.

"He had always been under the impression that if he wanted to pursue his music career he would have to leave the province and go to a major centre like Toronto or Vancouver. And he said that, after reading the magazine, he said it clears things up. He said it was like a fog was lifted. He said'I now know where I can go. I can go to Saskatoon and get the same program that everybody's been saying I have to go to get elsewhere.' And it's those kind of stories that we're starting to hear from our students, saying it's really helped them as a guide, given them some clarity as to where they can go," Hill said

"I think in the past we've had a lot of information from institutions about their programs but you have to sift through everything and kind of know what you're looking for, whereas now they have one easy guide, a centrepiece that you can just pull out and you can just say, 'Here's a career option that I'm thinking I'd like to do. Where can I go to get it?' And they immediately know because we link everything up with all the institutions,"

The goal, Hill said, is to eventually be able to distribute the magazine throughout the province.

A number of partners were involved in making Relevance a reality, including the PAGC, Cumberland Regional College, First Nations University of Canada, Northlands College, North West Regional College, the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technology, the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology, the University of Regina and the University of Saskatchewan. The Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission is also involved as is Campus Saskatchewan, a partnership of Saskatchewan's post-secondary institutions designed to promote the use of technology in learning.

Copies of the magazine can be downloaded in PDF format from the Relevance Web site (www.relevancemag.ca). A teacher's guide is also available.