At Roasters Foundation, we recognize the importance of accessible education. An educated population makes for a society equipped to deal with the challenges of the future. This is particularly true for maintaining a quality workforce to build and grow the economy. Education seems like the obvious answer, but today students are faced with a serious problem...

Accessibility to higher education: the shocking facts

• On average, if 3 students succeed in Québec, 2 will be female and 1 will be male. 40% of Grade 6 boys in Québec will not finish high school.
• One of the most common reasons students do not continue their studies after high school is because they can't afford it (Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation [1])
• 34% of students who do not go on to post-secondary education say their financial situation is a major barrier (Statistics Canada and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada [2])
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Without post-secondary education, people earn a much lower salary during their working years, and their contribution to our society and quality of life is less than it could be. Our entire society is affected by this! To move forward in a knowledge-based economy we must provide an increasing number of students with access to education.

The Québec education system is floundering

The Quebec government invests an average of 25% of its budget on education, while 40% consistently goes toward health care and social services [3]. This leaves a declining rate for educational institutions.

With financial losses affecting the quality of education a number of serious problems have emerged:

• Recent reforms at the elementary level have put our children in a province-wide social experiment. Many are not sufficiently challenged, nor are they encouraged to perform to the best of their abilities.
• Reaching high school, students are faced with a number of difficult challenges which they are unprepared to manage effectively.
• High-school dropout rates in Québec continue to be a huge problem. In the 2006-2007 school year, the highest dropout rates ranged from 65.9% to 90.4% (Ministère de l’Éducation, Loisir et du Sport [4]).
• Most schools with these high dropout rates are located in disadvantaged communities, illustrating the extent to which financial barriers limit the pursuit of education.
• A host of new financial hurdles await those who do manage to get into an institution of higher learning. Unfortunately, universities are most affected by declining public revenue.
• Squeezed budgets have left administrators scrounging to cut costs, settling for uncompetitive professional recruitment and leaving crumbling infrastructures in disrepair.
  

Clearly, the education system needs to be revolutionized We need to do everything we can to help students keep their dreams alive. At a recent gathering of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), Roasters Foundation put it this way: "Our common objective toward self-actualization begins with the satisfaction of the most rudimentary of needs. This objective can only be realized when we have the confidence, the courage and the space to dream... Dreams empower us with the will to set our most ambitious goals and to strive for our most arduous objectives." – Roasters Foundation Executive Director, Rachel Renaud

At Roasters Foundation, we are dedicated to making a positive impact on people who are striving to achieve their educational and professional goals. Education is the key to a prosperous society. Employers, individuals and organizations alike need to invest in the educational needs of the workforce to ensure continuing quality of work and technological advances in the future. All it takes is a little creativity, cooperation and innovation to:

• Help students go the distance
• Make high dropout rates a thing of the past
• Invest in our youth today for prosperity tomorrow See what we're doing, and follow our lead!

[1] Kelly Foley. “Why Stop after High School? A Descriptive Analysis of the Most Important Reasons that High School Graduates Do Not Continue to PSE”. Montreal: Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation Research Series

[2] Mylene Lambert et. al “Who pursues post-secondary education , who leaves, and why: Results from the Youth in Transition Survey.” Statistics Canada and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, Ministry of Industry, Ottawa: November 2004.

[3] Statistics from 1999-2008 Québec government budgets available at www.budget.finances.gouv.qc.ca

[4] Ministère de l’Éducation, Loisir et du Sport, statistics released to the Journal de Montréal for an article appearing May 26, 2008.