N.B. students seeing benefits of SEED employment program after rocky start

Approximately 2,000 New Brunswick students are gaining real-world experience through the Student Employment Experience Development program — more commonly know as ‘SEED.’

This is despite the program getting off to a rough start this year, accodring New Brunswick Student Alliance chairperson Travis Daley. Daley says the snag was due to lack of communication between students, employers and the provincial government.

Despite the issues surrounding the initial roll-out, he says the program is now more student-friendly — something the Alliance has wanted for years.

“The great thing about this program is that it puts more power in students hands,” Daley said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The great thing about this program is that it puts more power in students hands," Daley said.

In the past, MLAs made the decisions about which organizations in the province received funding to hire summer students.

Furthermore, those organizations were given funding to hire students and then were able to choose which students they hired.

That funding has now been replaced by a voucher that tells employers that students are eligible for hire as part of the SEED program. Funding is then given to employers who hire students, but it’s up to students to seek out jobs they want to apply for.

Daley says the changes provide more benefits to students by depoliticising the program and providing more equitable funding. By having students gain work experience in the province, it’s hoped they’ll stay in the province after graduating.

“It’s promising to see that these students are getting experiential learning in the work force in the province, building those networks here, being able to hopefully take root in what they’re doing,” Daley said.

Education Minister Donald Arseneault apologized for the confusion that initially surrounded the new system. He says proper adjustments have been made since the beginning of the summer, with 400 new jobs added, making the program more accessible.

“We took the politics out … So what we’ve done is we took that power away from the MLA to be able to chose where those students go to work,” Arseneault said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We took the politics out … So what we've done is we took that power away from the MLA to be able to chose where those students go to work," Arseneault said.

Arseneault says one of the challenges he hears from employers is that young people lack the proper amount of work experience. He says this year’s changes make students more attractive to employers by allowing them to gain work experience in their respective fields.

“This is not an employer program like it has been developed over the years. This is very specific to the students and it was to help them get more experience in their field of study so when they do graduate from university or college they’ll be more than ready to be able to find a career out there in the private sector,”Arseneault said.

Arseneault says once the summer season is over he plans on holding consultations with various stakeholders  including students, non-profits and the private sector businesses in order to continue improving the program.