Past three years has seen international shift at college

THUNDER BAY – Jim Madder says he’s pretty pleased with the direction Confederation College took over the past three years.

The school president on Thursday said on the biggest changes between 2013 and 2016 is demographics.

“Certainly our number of international students is increasing, but also of indigenous students and our number of students with other histories, other credentials,” Madder said before delivering the message to college partners and local dignitaries at a breakfast gathering.

“We have more than 350 students transferring to us from universities, primarily from Lakehead (University). Two or three years ago that number would have been maybe under 200, if that.”

Though he can’t pinpoint the exact reasons students are making the switch from university to the college stream, often after graduating from the former, there seems to be a pretty indicative trend why, Madder said.

“I think they’re looking for practical hands-on skills. They’re often coming to post-diploma programs or advanced technology programs.

They’re looking for very specific skills to layer on top of a degree,” Madder said.

Having completed his fifth year at the Confederation College helm, Madder presented the audience with a speech peppered with numbers.

Among the highlights:

There were 532 international students attending the school in 2015-16. That’s a significant increase over the number in place when Madder arrived, having grown by about 100 each year in the interim.

“They’re highly motivated to be here,” Madder said, noting the school plans to slow down growth in this area, partly because of some of the challenges international students face arriving in Canada, but still continue to grow.

The school had 571 students relocate from southern Ontario and 528 post-secondary learners in regional locations.

Madder also touched upon the number of Aboriginal students learning at the college, saying there were 1,295 enrolled this past school year. That’s up from 1,112 in 2013, the first year of the most recent strategic direction. In 2015 there were 294 Aboriginal post-secondary graduates.

Most importantly, he said 84.6 per cent of students found employment within six months of graduation and 79.3 per cent were satisfied with their education. And the school estimates about 411.2 million is added to the regional economy, based on 2012-13 numbers, by the college and its students.

Madder also used the occasion to informally launch Confederation College’s 50th anniversary celebration, which will kick off in 2017.

“Can you imagine back in 1967 when (former premiers) Bill Davis and Leslie Frost had these ideas of what an applied post-secondary system might look like,” Madder said.

“Could they imagine 50 years later what’s occurred here – 24 institutions, millions upon millions of graduates during that time. Every one of those institutions is different. They serve their own communities and you can tell we’re all pretty darn proud of what’s occurred during that time period.”