While educators, educational administrators and politicians continue their discussions and debates surrounding the somewhat controversial standardized testing regime that is being introduced in this province, you just have to love what is going on at ECS. This is where they probably don't really care to even enter the debate because they know that what they have going trumps any standardized political template.
This is a school that has shown its versatility and high degree of excellence over the years with a huge mandate to provide not only a stringent academic curriculum but also strong and demanding technical and vocational full credit programs. None of these classes are for the faint-of-heart students or their instructors.
Quality in, quality out.
There have been stumbles along the way for sure. What family hasn't had their share of problem children, malcontent adults, grumpy bosses and wayward ideas? You have to expect that on a campus that caters to a student population that exceeds most good sized Saskatchewan towns. Unlike most towns, this community doesn't have a mayor and council ... it's not a democracy after all, but it is efficiently functional on most days and that alone is something our overall community should be thankful for and be celebrating every single day. An educational institution that offers up as much versatility as ECS does, could just as easily become a chaotic mess. But it never has.
Just last weekend, technical and vocational students returned from provincial competition in such diverse scholastic pursuits as architecture design, baking, cabinetmaking, esthetics, hairstyling, photography and video production, bearing no fewer than 14 medals including four gold. They were up against some of the best secondary and post-secondary students in the province and they more than held their own. ECS students have been doing this ever since the Skills Canada test sites burst on the scene.
This proves that our local students are not only being prepped to dispense knowledge in calculus and Shakespeare, but also in dovetailing cabinet corners and diagnosing problems with a transmission.
Many of the students easily transfer from one sector to the other in seamless fashion, knowing that the more they can absorb at this level, the better prepared they'll be for future employment no matter what career path they ultimately choose. In other words, they are smart enough to open up as many options as they can handle in an academic world, knowing they have dedicated educators available to feed them that knowledge and those skills.
So we say congratulations to these young adults at ECS who take on music, drama, art, as well as commercial cooking, precision machining along with their classic academic subjects in English, social studies and mathematics. We say thank you and congratulations to their teachers who often go the extra kilometre just because they care a lot about these young charges. We add a well done to the administrative boards and committees that have the vision to support this big process. They realize they are supporting the future.
