Education Attainment

The Waterloo Region - Well Educated

Level of education in the Waterloo Region mirrors that of Canada:

	Number (2006)	% of total	Canada (% of total)
No Certificate, Diploma or Degree	85,885	23.8	23.8
High School Certificate or equivalent	101,545	28.2	25.5
Apprenticeship or trades Certificate/Diploma	29,060	8.1	10.9
College or other non-university Certificate or Diploma	66,870	18.6	17.3
University Certificate or Diploma below Bachelor level	10,555	2.9	4.4
University Degree
Bachelor's Degree	41,150	11.4	11.6
University Certificate above Bachelor's Degree	7,400	2.1	1.9
Degree in Medicine, Dentistry, Veterinary Medicine, or  Optometry	1,675	0.5	0.5
Master's Degree	12,760	3.5	3.4
Doctorate	3,425	0.9	0.7
Total	360,325	100	100

Source: Statistics Canada, 2006 Census, Educational Attainment of Workforce, Population Age 15+

Technically Skilled Workforce

Common thread across sectors - employment of advanced technology in production and business processes. Advanced technology = technically skilled workforce

A Leading Labour Force Feedstock

The Waterloo Region has a sizeable and nationally and internationally well-regarded education and knowledge creation cluster consisting of colleges, universities, research institutes, and businesses. There are 16 post-secondary educational institutions within a 1 hour radius of the Waterloo Region. Research and development capacity is considerable, with 150 Research Centres located in the Region, including:

• University of Waterloo, arguably the largest pool of math and computer science talent in world that has attracted highly skilled labour force seeking companies like Mircosoft, Google, OpenText, and RIM to establish locations in the Region. The University is a national leader in technology transfer, including generation of more than 100 spin-off companies. An under-promoted but critical reason for the scale of intellectual property generation and transfer is the University's intellectual property policy, which sees ownership of invention remain with the inventor.
• Conestoga College – Ontario's top-ranked college.
• Wilfrid Laurier University - ranked 2nd in Ontario for "Primarily Undergraduate Universities", including well regarded business and entrepreneurship programs.
• nearby University of Guelph - the top “Comprehensive University” for research (Maclean's Magazine), with external research funding in excess of $100 million annually.