Simon Fraser University to set to train more students for a technology-sector career, the B.C.-based institution revealed this week.
Powered by provincial funding, 500 new student spaces will open up at SFU, according to the school.
The government committed $75 million over three years through its “StrongerBC: Future Ready Action Plan,” which accelerates talent development and skills training to address workforce challenges across sectors throughout BC.
“Workplaces are transforming, and we have more job openings in growing and in-demand fields than we have skilled workers ready to fill them,” Lisa Beare, Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills, said in a statement. “We are excited to add more student spaces for people to learn, grow and thrive in these in-demand careers.”
The 500 spaces will be added to SFU’s roster of tech-focused programs. Areas gaining spaces include software systems, agri-tech, social data analytics, data science, and statistics.
Spaces will be added over four years to both the Burnaby and Surrey campuses of SFU.
In total, faculties of science will gain 269 new seats (including more than 200 for data science alone), applied sciences will gain 209, social sciences will gain 11, and the Beedie School of Business will gain 11.
The expansion of technology-relevant spaces at SFU is part of a larger provincial plan to create 3,000 more tech spaces across the region’s public post-secondary education system. Last month, UBC unveiled 800 new spaces.
“The students who will be filling these hundreds of seats . . . will help increase the supply of talent into the province’s rapidly expanding tech sector,” stated B.C.’s jobs minister, Brenda Bailey, in April.
SFU was founded in 1965.
