EdUp Canada

EdUp Canada

Success does not usually happen in a straight line. It has twists and turns, speedbumps and detours. But something that’s fundamental to success is equipping yourself with the right skills…but what are the right skills? Well, let’s find out. Join me, Michael Sangster, as we learn about how successful people have turned a set of skills into success. From students to business leaders, veterans, policymakers, blue-collar workers and educators. You’ll find out how learning a set of skills can lead to a lifetime of success. Welcome to the EdUp Canada podcast. Let’s learn together.

  1. 23 hrs ago

    The Pathways Paradox: Why Colleges Can't Afford the Students They Need to Afford Programs with James Matechuk

    James Matechuk went on Global News on Canada Day to talk about what Canada means to him. He spoke for 10 minutes — about international education, career colleges, the way students from every part of the world come together on Canadian campuses and empower each other. The segment used about five seconds of it. In this episode of the EdUp Canada Podcast, he finally gets to make the case in full. As Senior Director of Higher Education Partnerships for the Oxford International Digital Institute, James has spent years watching what happens when newcomer students arrive with the drive but not quite the English to immediately succeed — and what happens when the right support is there versus when it isn't. He's been on campuses in Newfoundland, seen the programs, sat with the students, and now he's working with NACC to bring a simple but powerful fix to career college members across the country: a six-week, fully online, flipped-classroom English pathways program with a 98% student success rate. The conversation covers what James calls the "pathways paradox" — the regulatory catch-22 where colleges need English pathway programs to resource their intake, but can't offer those programs without students to fund them. It covers a co-developed English for Healthcare program with Keyin College in Newfoundland, including a customized Newfoundland dialect module. And it ends with a student story that begins with a decade of family bake sales in Brazil and ends with tears of joy in a Canadian classroom on the first day of school. [00:04:30] — The Pathways Paradox [00:07:30] — The Future of Work Conference and the English-Sized Gap Nobody Noticed [00:09:00] — English for Healthcare, Built in Newfoundland [00:12:30] — The Six-Week Flipped Classroom [00:13:30] — 98% Meet Requirements and Succeed [00:15:30] — "That's What Canada Really Means to Me" [00:22:30] — The Student Skill That Mirrors James's Own [00:29:00] — Bake Sales in a Favela

    The Pathways Paradox: Why Colleges Can't Afford the Students They Need to Afford Programs with James Matechuk

  2. Jul 22

    21% of firms stopped hiring entry-level. 47% Are About to with Dr. Stephen Murgatroyd

    Dr. Stephen Murgatroyd helped build the world's first fully online graduate program — an MBA at Athabasca University in 1993, back when connecting to the internet meant putting a phone handset in a cradle. Within 24 months, it had captured 30% of the executive MBA market. Since then, he's spent more than 35 years advising career colleges, public institutions, K-12 networks, and provincial quality assurance bodies on where education is going — and what happens to institutions that don't move fast enough to meet it. In episode 95 of the EdUp Canada Podcast — a return visit — host Michael Sangster brings Stephen back for an unscripted conversation about three things: what AI is actually doing to students' cognitive development, what it's doing to entry-level jobs, and what Canada's career college sector needs to do about both before it's too late. The numbers Stephen brings are not abstract. 21% of Canadian firms have already stopped hiring at entry level. 47% intend to join them within the year. The shelf life of technical accounting skills — according to Deloitte — is now 18 months, 12 for audit. And the problem underneath all of it isn't a skills gap. It's a trust gap: employers can no longer tell whether a graduate did the work or the AI did. Stephen's argument is that the first career colleges to move — to embed AI across every program, to shift from assessing what students know to what they can do, to build lifelong learning systems that serve the 30-million-person re-skilling market rather than the 3-million-person entry-level market — will define what career education looks like for the next generation. [00:00:00] — "21% of Canadian Firms Have Stopped Hiring at Entry Level"  [00:06:30] — The World's First Online MBA — Built When Phones Lived in Cradles [00:07:30] — The Three-Way AI Research Finding  [00:09:30] — "We Need to Shift From Assessing What Students Know to What They Can Do"  [00:11:30] — It's Not a Skills Gap. It's a Trust Gap.  [00:13:30] — The 18-Month Shelf Life of Accounting Skills  [00:20:30] — Brainport Eindhoven: What Collaboration Actually Looks Like  [00:28:00] — One Minute of Advice for Three Audiences  Read the full transcript: https://share.descript.com/view/OJpJzhoKqFR Listen to past episodes here:https://www.edupcanada.ca/

    21% of firms stopped hiring entry-level. 47% Are About to with Dr. Stephen Murgatroyd

  3. Jul 15

    When She Says "I Want to Go Home," She Doesn't Mean the Address with Judy Cohen, Deborah Rothenberg and Einat Sandler Leib

    Judy Cohen opened PEAK College because she ran a care home first. She watched PSWs arrive from other institutions — trained, credentialed, technically capable — and she knew she could do better. So she did. L'Chaim Retirement Home, a 30-bed dementia-specialized residence with a waiting list that stays long, became the proving ground for a school. Students from PEAK — and from other colleges — do their practicum at L'Chaim. What the staff observe goes straight back into the curriculum. The curriculum informs what happens in the home. It's a feedback loop that has been running, getting sharper, for over a decade. In this episode of the EdUp Canada Podcast, host Michael Sangster sits with Judy and two of her closest collaborators: Deborah Rothenberg, Director of Operations at L'Chaim and co-founder of Dementia Support, a curriculum program now being delivered to long-term care facilities across the sector; and Einat Sandler Leib, Managing Director of the Memory Loss Foundation and educational innovation consultant at PEAK College. Together they cover 770 PSW graduates in a single year, a 20-hour AI safety workshop built specifically for PSWs entering home care, a Smart and Safe seminar reaching seniors in retirement homes and community centers across the GTA, and the Moments Café — a social program for people with memory loss and their care partners. And they share the insight that Deborah delivers quietly but clearly: you can teach a PSW to check every box on the list. But kindness, empathy, and appropriate speech? That, you can't buy. [00:04:30] — Two Sides of the Same Crisis  [00:06:00] — "I Can Do Better. I Must Do Better."  [00:07:00] — 2,500 Questions Inside a Closed AI  [00:08:30] — Five Agencies, One Room, Hired on the Spot  [00:11:30] — Smart and Safe: AI for Older Adults  [00:17:00] — "I Wanna Go Home" Doesn't Mean the Address  [00:18:00] — "Kindness. Empathy. This You Can't Buy."  [00:27:00] — The AI Policy Gap in Home Care  Read the full transcript here: https://share.descript.com/view/ZexevIjwGPK  Listen to past episodes here: www.edupcanada.ca

    When She Says "I Want to Go Home," She Doesn't Mean the Address with Judy Cohen, Deborah Rothenberg and Einat Sandler Leib

  4. Jul 8

    What Are You Gonna Do for This Country in the Next 100 Years? With Kumaran Nadesan of Computek College

    Computek College turns 35 this year. If you speak to virtually any member of Canada's 500,000-strong Tamil Canadian diaspora, someone in their circle studied there. Elected officials, business owners, healthcare workers — the college's roots run so deep in the GTA's immigrant communities that its reach is measured less in enrollment numbers and more in families. Kumaran Nadesan, CEO of Computek and Group CEO of 369 Global, joined the college five years ago after 15 years in the Ontario provincial government. He came in with a policy mind and a community organizer's instincts — and he's been applying both ever since. In this episode of the EdUp Canada Podcast, host Michael Sangster sits with Kumaran across conversations about a 750-PSW Durham Region partnership, a Kenya pilot program designed to train future Canadian healthcare workers at source before they ever land, and a recently published book — The Impolite Canadian: Why Playing Nice Is Costing Us the Future — that asks a direct question of everyone in every room they have the privilege of occupying: what are you going to do for this country? The episode covers everything from cybersecurity curriculum to cultural intelligence to what it means for an instructor who's been at Computek for years to have changed more than a thousand families — not just students. It's a conversation about a sector that has been doing labour market integration for over 160 years, and a college that is quietly extending that work to Kenya, East Africa, and beyond. [00:04:30] — 35 Years and 500,000 Tamil Canadians  [00:06:30] — Not Just a Business. A Mission.  [00:07:00] — Embedded in Community: Meeting the Ashanti King  [00:10:00] — "I've Been to Those Places"  [00:12:00] — Training Canada's PSWs in Nairobi Before They Land  [00:19:30] — 750 PSWs and the Durham Region Partnership  [00:27:00] — "What Are You Gonna Do for This Country Over the Next 100 Years?"  [00:31:00] — Savitri David and a Thousand Families  Read the full transcript here: https://share.descript.com/view/t7AoD6RP2Xe Listen to past episodes here: www.edupcanada.ca

    What Are You Gonna Do for This Country in the Next 100 Years? With Kumaran Nadesan of Computek College

  5. Jul 1

    Two-thirds had never been on a Set. Now There's $100 million in Production with Andrew Barnsley of the Toronto Film School & Executive Producer, Schitt's Creek

    Most people who've watched Schitt's Creek, Son of a Critch, Kids in the Hall, or Jann don't know they were watching a career college story unfold. Andrew Barnsley — executive producer of all four, president of the Toronto Film School, and one of the most respected television producers in Canada — has spent the last several years running both a production company and an institution purpose-built to fill the creative industries with the people those productions need. In this Canada Day edition of the EdUp Canada Podcast, he makes the case that those two roles are not as separate as they sound. The conversation starts in Newfoundland, where Andrew traces what five seasons of Son of a Critch did to an entire province's film industry: when they arrived, the province had roughly one and a half crews; when they left, it had more than doubled. $100 million in production flowed through in 2025 alone. That growth didn't happen by accident — it happened because the labour pool deepened, and labour pools deepen through training. At Toronto Film School, Andrew is investing in the infrastructure that makes that depth possible: a new campus with motion capture studios, a theater, sound recording booths, and $2.5 million in state-of-the-art production equipment. The Hollywood Reporter has named it one of the top international film schools in the world for three consecutive years. But the conversation's most memorable moment happens at a wrap party in Newfoundland, where Andrew turns to a grip and says: "Never forget how important your work is. When we do our jobs right at every level, we're impacting the world." It's a line he's been saying to students, too — and it's the clearest explanation of why he's doing both jobs at once. [00:07:30] — The Mission: A Graduate on Every Set, Coast to Coast to Coast  [00:08:00] — One and a Half Crews to Four: The Newfoundland Story  [00:09:30] — "Raise Your Hand If This Was Your First Time on a Set"  [00:11:30] — Three Years on The Hollywood Reporter's List  [00:15:00] — Why No Government Touches Film Tax Credits Anymore  [00:17:00] — 1,000 People Bring One Show to Life  [00:24:00] — "It Started in a Dark Room in St. John's"  [00:36:30] — People Want to Know the Secret

    Two-thirds had never been on a Set. Now There's $100 million in Production with Andrew Barnsley of the Toronto Film School & Executive Producer, Schitt's Creek

  6. Jun 17

    He Can't Sell Sonography Machines. There's No One to Run Them with Dr. Sherif William

    Most career colleges operate inside an office park or a downtown tower. Mississauga Career College operates inside a building that also houses a private school, a museum, a family service center, a food bank — and two churches, one of them so striking it stopped host Michael Sangster mid-sentence when he walked through the door. Dr. Sherif William, a medical doctor by training who arrived in Canada and found his way into career college education in 2018, now directs the college. It's owned by a not-for-profit charity built specifically to serve newcomers to Canada — and the model shows up everywhere, from a personal support worker program that's graduated nearly 700 students directly into local care homes to a free tuition policy for students who genuinely can't pay, with every dollar of revenue cycling back into community programs like food banks and orphan support. In this episode of the EdUp Canada Podcast, Sherif walks Michael through what it actually takes to get a 2,400-hour diagnostic sonography program approved in Ontario — a three-year process derailed midway by a regulatory rule change that sent them back to square one. He explains the college's unusual pre-medical pathway, which guarantees acceptance into four Caribbean medical schools for students who complete two years and hit an 80% success threshold. And he talks about a partnership with ACHEV, a government-funded settlement organization offering low-interest student loans specifically for newcomers training in regulated health programs. It's a conversation about regulation, community, and what a career college can look like when its mission is community service first and everything else second. [00:02:00] — A College Built for Newcomers, By Design [00:03:30] — The First Call He Made  [00:04:30] — Inside the Building: A School, a Museum, Two Churches, and a Family Service Center  [00:07:00] — Three Years, Two Sets of Rules  [00:09:00] — "He Cannot Sell Machines"  [00:10:30] — A Guaranteed Path Into Medical School  [00:18:30] — "Show Up in Your Perfect Way"  [00:22:30] — Free Tuition, No Questions Asked Publicly  Read the full transcript here: https://share.descript.com/view/1iW4ge9LZKn  Listen to past episodes here: https://www.edupcanada.ca/

    He Can't Sell Sonography Machines. There's No One to Run Them with Dr. Sherif William

  7. Jun 10

    100 Students Want to Be Doctors. 3% Will Make It. Here's What Nobody Tells the Rest with Jason Chu

    Most people picture a career college student as someone fresh out of high school looking for a fast path to a job. Jason Chu wants you to think again. As Director of Operations at AAPS College of Health Sciences and Technology — formerly the Academy of Applied Pharmaceutical Sciences, founded in Toronto in 2003 — Jason works with students who already hold bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and PhDs. Scientists who went through every academic credential the system offers and still couldn't land a job in the field they trained for. Internationally educated medical doctors who practiced for a decade and arrived in Canada to find their credentials didn't transfer. Food science graduates discovering that there's no job title called "biologist" — but dozens of openings in quality control. AAPS exists to bridge that gap. In this episode of the EdUp Canada Podcast, Jason walks host Michael Sangster through what that actually looks like: a six-to-eleven-month postgraduate diploma program, industry professionals teaching live curriculum, an alumni network of managing directors and VPs who recruit directly from current cohorts, and career services that starts halfway through the program — because three months in, students are already applying for jobs. He also tells the stories that stay with him: a PhD student who'd lost all hope, hired within three months of starting. A medical doctor who practiced overseas for a decade, companies lining up before he graduated. And a clear-eyed argument for why the career college sector — misconceptions and all — is doing work Canada can't afford to undervalue. [00:03:00] — "To Bridge That Gap Between Academia and Industry" [00:05:00] — The Alumni Network That Recruits for You  [00:09:30] — "500 Applicants. 90 to 95% Not What They're Looking For."  [00:13:00] — What Professors Tell Him at University Talks  [00:16:00] — The PhD Who Lost All Hope  [00:18:00] — The Doctor Who Couldn't Start Over   [00:21:00] — "I'll Give You Three Days to Sort This Out"   [00:25:30] — "If You Have a Bad Batch of Tylenol"   Read the full transcript:

    100 Students Want to Be Doctors. 3% Will Make It. Here's What Nobody Tells the Rest with Jason Chu

  8. Jun 3

    Maybe they don't need to be nurses...challenging the PSW assumption with Raelynn Douglas

    Everyone agrees Canada has a healthcare workforce crisis. Almost no one is looking at it correctly. Raelynn Douglas — CEO of Rae Soleil Consulting, MBA in health and life sciences, and author of The Billion Dollar Blind Spot — spent years watching the same conversation repeat itself: not enough workers, recruiting from the Philippines, signing bonuses, and a vague commitment to improving staff wellbeing. Her argument is that this is a retention problem masquerading as a recruitment problem, and that no one is calculating what it actually costs. The math is not subtle. An organization of 5,000 staff with 30% turnover, using a conservative $15,000 replacement cost per person, is leaking $22.5 million every year — scattered across line items, never totalled, never actioned. Gallup calls the global version a trillion-dollar preventable problem. Raelynn calls the Canadian healthcare version a billion-dollar blind spot. On this episode of the EdUp Canada Podcast, host Michael Sangster brings Raelynn's financial and HR lens into a direct conversation about personal support workers, career pathing, the role of skills training, and what "super PSWs" could look like if we stopped treating the workforce as transactional. Her book is a field guide for healthcare leaders who want the conditions of work to change — and this conversation is a sharp, practical extension of that argument. [00:03:00] — "I Don't Think It's a Recruitment Problem. I Think It's a Retention Problem." [00:04:30] — Beyond Wishful Thinking [00:11:30] — The $10,000 Cell Phone Bill [00:12:30] — $22.5 Million a Year. Nobody's Counting [00:16:00] — The PSW Program That Made Nurses Stay Longer [00:17:30] — Full-Time First. Then Everything Else. [00:20:00] — "Maybe We Need Super PSWs" [00:25:30] — "Don't Use Your Brakes" Read the full transcript here: https://share.descript.com/view/sPoF6jXR67U Listen to past episodes here: https://www.edupcanada.ca/

    Maybe they don't need to be nurses...challenging the PSW assumption with Raelynn Douglas
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About

Success does not usually happen in a straight line. It has twists and turns, speedbumps and detours. But something that’s fundamental to success is equipping yourself with the right skills…but what are the right skills? Well, let’s find out. Join me, Michael Sangster, as we learn about how successful people have turned a set of skills into success. From students to business leaders, veterans, policymakers, blue-collar workers and educators. You’ll find out how learning a set of skills can lead to a lifetime of success. Welcome to the EdUp Canada podcast. Let’s learn together.

Information

  • Creator
    EdUp Canada
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    118
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © EdUp Canada
  • Show Website
    EdUp Canada