The Government of Saskatchewan is spending $8.1 million to establish the Occupational Therapy Program and Speech Language Pathology Training Program at the University of Saskatchewan.Advanced Education Minister Colleen Young said the training will result in more health care professionals practising in the province."Our post-secondary institutions play key roles in helping address provincial labour market needs and achieving our Growth Plan goals," Young said. "Establishing these programs in-province will give more students the opportunity to train closer to home and make it easier to retain our grads here in Saskatchewan." Health Minister Everett Hindley said consultations revealed these professions to be especially needful."As we were meeting with frontline health care providers, our government heard concerns that these professions were in high demand and that we needed to do more to attract and retain students," Hindley said."A key pillar of our Health Human Resources Action Plan is to create training opportunities here at home for Saskatchewan students passionate about a career in health care while encouraging them to choose to live and work in the province after graduation." Each of the new training programs will be a two-year Masters program that will accept up to 40 students per year. The programs are targeted to begin in the Fall of 2026.In the meantime, students from Saskatchewan can continue to access reserved seats in Occupational Therapy and Speech Language Pathology in Alberta through the government's interprovincial agreement programs which were established in 2020 to help the province meet its need for specialized health professionals.University of Saskatchewan (USask) President Peter Stoicheff said the funding was welcome."We appreciate the provincial government's investment in developing innovative speech language pathology and occupational therapy programs at the University of Saskatchewan," Stoicheff said."These programs will expand USask's ability to train health professionals, whose skills are in high-demand and whose contributions will improve the quality of life across Saskatchewan."Occupational Therapists and Speech Language Pathologists serve children, seniors, and people with disabilities, injuries or illnesses. Under these new programs, students will undertake clinical placements as early as their first year of studies, which will place more professionals into the health care sector sooner.More information on health care training options in Saskatchewan is available at saskatchewan.ca/hhr-train.
