Calgary Regional WIL Secretariate and Portal 

Work-integrated learning (WIL) gives people the chance to apply the skills they have learned in the classroom while gaining on-the-job experience and pathways to meaningful careers in  emerging, high-demand sectors. 

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Through FSC’s $2.9 million investment, Calgary Economic Development (CED) is developing a one-stop, online portal for WIL opportunities in the region. These paid work placements focus on gaining hands-on experience from industry experts over the course of a student’s academic studies. Placements can be co-ops, internships, applied research projects or field placements.

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This innovative model and central platform will support economic growth and inclusion through WIL for post-secondary students, and will benefit jobseekers, employers and the Alberta economy.This initiative will also make WIL more accessible to non-traditional participants such as mature learners, youth, and organizations not typically connected to post-secondary institutions. 

CED and multiple local stakeholders have come together to form a consortium with technology partners Magnet and Orbis Communications, in order to demonstrate the viability of deploying a regional WIL model and to identify and address issues around broader applicability for communities and regions across Canada. 

This work is immediately contributing to Calgary’s economic transformation, while also providing insights for a more systematic way for employers to collaborate with post-secondary institutions. 

Featured Projects

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Research

Pathways to Careers: Advancing Neuroinclusive Work‑Integrated Learning in Higher Educationexternal link icon

Signal49 Research, in partnership with the Future Skills Centre, is exploring how post-secondary WIL providers and workplace hosts can design more inclusive programs that set neurodivergent students up for success.
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Project

ABC Skills Hub

Nearly half of Canadian adults have inadequate literacy skills, meaning they have poor reading, writing and numeracy skills that limit their ability to participate in the economy and daily life. ABC Life Literacy, an expert in adult learning, has been successfully offering adult literacy courses in person, and sought to migrate this content online to be more widely accessible to individual learners and other literacy organizations across the country.
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Project

Strength in Structure

The Canadian Council for Youth Prosperity’s Strength in Structure project engaged Black youth and Black-focused, Black-led and Black-serving, or B3, community organizations to develop a toolkit intended to improve delivery of services to meet the needs of Black youth job seekers.
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