Publications

Executive Summary

This report is the third in a three-part series. To view the first report, click here. To view the second report, click here.

This report is based on an Ontario-wide analysis of students who pursue apprenticeship programs and makes comparisons between those who attended high school in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and those who did not. The statistical analysis is based on administrative data linkages between the TDSB and Statistics Canada’s Educational Labour Market Longitudinal Platform and provides invaluable insight into the relatively unexplored relationship between public school variables and apprenticeship outcomes. It also provides insight into how similar or disparate postsecondary outcomes are for students within and outside of the TDSB. 

The statistical analyses mostly focus on a series of descriptive statistics that describe the types of apprenticeships that students pursue, their age of initiation, program duration, graduation rates, and gender. One of the key findings from this report is that securing a Red Seal or non-Red Seal certificate is incredibly challenging. Across Ontario, just over a third of students (36%) who enter a Red Seal or non-Red Seal apprenticeship program successfully obtain a certificate within six years. For students from the TDSB, the proportion is even lower at 26%. The results also reveal that students outside of the TDSB tend to fare better financially compared to their counterparts within the TDSB across most of the variables. These and other significant findings are highlighted in the report, along with possible explanations for the results.