A generation ago, Canada was one of a relatively privileged number of industrialized economies that could afford to provide its citizens with high quality, public education. Today, country’s with low skilled and poor populations are rapidly modernizing and are making unprecedented progress in their education and training.

When yesterday’s generation first entered the workforce, it hardly occurred to them that their jobs could just as easily be performed by people from exotic places, such as in Bangalore, Shanghai and Sao Paulo. Such global realities need to inform our long-term education thinking in Atlantic Canada, and in the rest of Canada, as we prepare for the future.

Competing globally starts with our local education and it begins at home.