Post-Secondary Education Day at Estevan Comprehensive School (ECS) Wednesday was more than about places to go to for future schooling.
It wasn’t even in the daytime, as 25 institutions came to ECS for an evening with parents and students, mostly in Grades 11 and 12, to think about what options there are for graduates. Attendance for the event was very good, said Stacy Dutka with student services at ECS.
“I didn’t know what to expect because we’ve never hosted an evening event,” she said. “I decided this year we were going to try something new…”
Every two years there has been a major full-day event that takes place when it comes to recruiting and post-secondary education.
“I decided this year to try a night event and I ended up with way more schools and training academies than I expected,” Dutka said.
While she was happy with the number of schools in attendance she was a bit nervous about who would attend from the other side of the ledger – the students and parents.
“I didn’t even know what to expect and I won’t even lie, at 10 (minutes) to 7, there were 10 people there and I was panicking inside. But I would guess by the end of the night there was 160,” Dutka said.
Dutka said she opened the event to everyone but pushed it hard on those who will graduate in the next couple of years.
“There were definitely some Grade 10s there, and some were there with younger siblings… but I would say the majority were Grades 11 and 12,” she said.
The schools were there to clarify some of their programming options and what they offer and let students and parents know about some of the lesser-known programs. As well, Dutka said they had looked at some of the entrance requirements for their programs.
“Some of them also learned admission averages, and learned cut-offs from what sort of average they should be striving for to get into the programs they want to get into,” she said. “Also, they talked to them about residence and scholarship opprtunities.”
The event was switched to the night to try to get a chance for the parents to be more involved than they might be if it was just during the day.
“If the parents come with the students, they kind of gather the knowledge together as opposed to hearing it secondhand,” said Dutka. “Also I think it improved the students’ engagement. The recruiters always have great swag, as they call it, to give out at their tables to entice people over.
“But when their parent is standing beside them, a lot of the recruiters said the students asked better questions. They were making that better effort to listen to the answer really deeply and truly and build from the first answer to ask even deeper questions.”
Dutka said the success of the night will definitely lead to it being in the evening in future years, starting in 2020.
And it wasn’t just schools there, as the Canadian Border Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Canadian Forces were there recruiting as well.
