A Program Designed to Expand Opportunities for Students in Disadvantaged Communities : What Pathways to Education Has Achieved

Ontario’s first Poverty Reduction Strategy, Breaking the Cycle, was launched in 2008. It was stated in Breaking the Cycle that the best strategy to fight against poverty was a fundamental investment in children’s education to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty. The strategy focused on children and youth with low educational attainment living in low-income community. The target was a reduction in the number of those children by 25%, that is, helping 90,000 children out of poverty. As one of success stories of supporting the youth, Breaking the Cycle referred to Pathways to Education, a program designed to provide opportunities for students in disadvantaged communities to be successful at school and in life. Pathways to Education implemented its program in 2001 in Regent Park, which was one of the most disadvantaged communities in Canada. The program was created by the effort of Regent Park Community Health Centre to combat the low educational attainment of the youth in the community at the time. The findings in the research conducted in Regent Park led to the development of the Pathways Program. It was intended to help students from low-income families complete secondary education and go on to post-secondary education. In September 2001, the program started supporting 115 grade 9 students in the community. Pathways Program has four pillars, academic tutoring, social support through mentoring, financial assistance, and advocacy role. Eligible students and their families for the program sign documents at the registration each year. The students can receive tutoring in academic subjects four nights a week and also meet mentors as a group for grade 9 and 10, and participate in career mentoring for grade 11 and 12 students. Bus tickets are provided to the students if needed, and scholarship for post-secondary education is provided upon graduating secondary school. Student-Parent Support Worker for advocacy regularly meet students, keep track of their school attendance and communicate with their parents when their children are on the program. The effectiveness of the program was revealed in a short period of time, and the program caught the attention of the media and the society. The dropout rates in the community declined greatly and the proportion of students who moved on to post-secondary institutions increased significantly. In comparison with results from other programs, the impact of Pathways Program on students is obviously impressive and effective. The results tell what the community-based multifaceted program has achieved for disadvantaged students with devoted volunteers’ assistance. In 2007, the government of Ontario made an additional fund for Pathway to expand the program to another four sites in the province. The Ontario government announced and launched the second strategy, Realizing Our Potential, in 2014. Pathways now delivers the program to 17 sites across Canada, and 10,000 students will benefit from the supports by 2016. The replication of the program in many communities raise questions : does the original model of the program work for different sites and will other sites achieve as much as what Regent Park has accomplished? Pathways has produced graduates over past years, and it is time to ask what has been happening to the graduates and their communities. Follow up study will help answer those questions to move further forward in reducing poverty.departmental bulletin pape