About 400 Grade 9 students from Olds, Airdrie and Three Hills took part in Junior Achievement programs on May 7 and 8 at Olds College, where they learned about the importance of matching skills to jobs and how to budget in their lives.
Junior Achievement (JA) is a worldwide, not-for-profit program aimed at providing high school students with practical business experience.
Students learned about employability skills, trends in employment and what is known as “moving day” where students are given a hypothetical job and must survive on that income without assistance.
Employees from several local businesses, including Mountain View Credit Union, Fortis Alberta and TD Canada Trust, taught the sessions at the college.
Paul Pettypiece, regional coordinator of the Central Alberta region for the Junior Achievement program, said the idea is to teach students skills they will need after high school and encourage students to go as far as they aspire to in education to set up success.
“We suggest to them that in all probability, the more education they have, the more income they'll have, therefore a higher standard of living. In the process, we teach them what it costs to live, how to create a budget,” he said. “We also want to make sure that they understand themselves well enough to know what kind of skills that they already have and what skills they need to develop to provide the success that they want.”
Pettypiece explained that different JA programs focus on different areas, depending on the grade level. A second Grade 9 program also teaches students about investing, while there is also a Grade 7 program called “Dollars with Sense” that teaches students financial literacy. A more involved high school program teaches students how to run a business by marketing a product or service.
Bailey Knapp, one of the Grade 9 students from Olds High School, said she learned about how to manage personal finances.
“I think that budgeting is important and that if you don't, you'll kind of end up with financial problems,” she said.
Shayna Konashuk, another OHS student, said one of the most important things that she learned from the program was that when going to find a job, one should base the search in part on interests and skills. Budgeting is also important, “so that when you get that first paycheque that you don't end up, like, spending it all and going in debt.”
“It's showing us the importance of making sure you get a job that you like and it's showing us, like how to budget and so when we get out into the future, we know what we are doing,” she said.
Michelle Leigh, who works at TD Canada Trust, led some of the students through the budgeting process, matching a hypothetical paycheque to a personal budget. She also led them through mock interviews, preparing them for the hiring process.
As a member of the financial services industry, Leigh said she finds the JA program an excellent way to teach students valuable skills they will need in the future, especially around financial literacy.
“It's one of the reasons I really like doing this program because I think it's really important to educate kids about the importance of both staying in school as well as planning and helping them learn to manage money early in life because we see so many people where that hasn't been the case,” Leigh said. “But if we can start young by helping them now, it helps them to be even more successful later.”
