Our guest speaker was Sheila Biggers, President and CEO of Junior Achievement B.C. (JABC). JA was founded some years ago in Massachusetts with specific targets that are designed to enhance the prospects and aptitudes of young people to be more effective in their business awareness and achievements, which is essentially the same as making them better and more productive citizens and actors in the world economy. The objective was, and remains, to fill in those aspects of life (business life in particular) that are most probably missed in academic studies and even in many homes, where everyday economics are probably traditionally best founded.
The features of life that are central to this disparate training are things such as how to remain in the educational system with specific career goals, and how to budget - rather well described as “how to ensure that students become one of the class of persons who are less likely to spend more than they earn” a skill which by no means does everybody attain. The more obvious objectives are to learn financial literacy, to develop communication skills and to encourage creativity in the workplace.
In this day and age, one of almost frenetic technical advances, one of the most opaque but necessary skills to achieve is the ability to acquire as many skills as can be accommodated to permit an ability to encompass the unknown. For this reason JA is constantly seeking assistance from those in the work world who can volunteer their time and expertise to enlighten the young as to attitudes that enhance the acquisition of necessary life skills. It is recorded that after attending the necessary courses, 75% of attendees report a positive change in attitudes towards remaining in school: this, of course, is more an attitude towards life in general than a specific drive to acquire actual technical skills. We received a very direct and effective encouragement to put greater social effort into enhancing work-life attitudes, JA being soundly backed by a plethora of big and respected international businesses.
The features of life that are central to this disparate training are things such as how to remain in the educational system with specific career goals, and how to budget - rather well described as “how to ensure that students become one of the class of persons who are less likely to spend more than they earn” a skill which by no means does everybody attain. The more obvious objectives are to learn financial literacy, to develop communication skills and to encourage creativity in the workplace.
In this day and age, one of almost frenetic technical advances, one of the most opaque but necessary skills to achieve is the ability to acquire as many skills as can be accommodated to permit an ability to encompass the unknown. For this reason JA is constantly seeking assistance from those in the work world who can volunteer their time and expertise to enlighten the young as to attitudes that enhance the acquisition of necessary life skills. It is recorded that after attending the necessary courses, 75% of attendees report a positive change in attitudes towards remaining in school: this, of course, is more an attitude towards life in general than a specific drive to acquire actual technical skills. We received a very direct and effective encouragement to put greater social effort into enhancing work-life attitudes, JA being soundly backed by a plethora of big and respected international businesses.