THUNDER BAY — Leadership at Confederation College laid out the challenges the school is facing on a number of fronts Wednesday morning, including that they’ll be temporarily suspending three more programs this fall.
The school held its annual report to the community presentation at the college’s Dibaajimogamig Lecture Theatre, led by board chair Kim Vares and president Michelle Salo. Salo’s presentation outlined pressures the province’s college system is facing, due, she said, to declining domestic enrolment, changes to various federal immigration policies and post-graduate work permit rules, insufficient funding from the province and forced tuition freezes.
“We must also recognize the tough times ahead for the college system,” Salo said in her presentation. “Across Ontario, post-secondary institutions are navigating unprecedented and complex pressures — financial, operational and social.”
“But despite those challenges, we remain focused on our mission and determined to keep moving forward for the benefit of our students in our region.”
In her presentation, Salo said that on top of the 11 programs the college said it was forced to permanently suspend — including the controversial decision to mothball its culinary management program — the school will be pausing enrolment on three additional programs for this fall.
Speaking to reporters afterwards, Salo confirmed they are industrial manufacturing processes, engineering business and safety management and embedded systems — a program for electrical and electronic engineering graduates to get more hands-on learning with things like computer software, industrial control systems, health and safety and quality assurance.
“As we review every year, we look at the next intake that's coming and determine is there enough students in every program to continue to offer it,” Salo said after her presentation. “It's kind of a regular process and this year because of the decline in international enrolment, we've had to suspend three programs in the fall.”
Salo said, at this point, the suspension isn’t permanent.
“We're hoping that some of those students we can offer for the winter intake that we have for those programs, so we're hopeful that winter will be stronger than the fall in those programs.”
International students, the college has said, help keep certain programs afloat when there aren’t enough domestic students to support them. And even though they were predicting a significant drop in international students heading into the fall, Salo said even those estimates may have been too optimistic.
She said they had been expected to see 770 new international students starting this year — now, she added, it could actually be about half of that.
The annual presentation, which was delivered to the room full of community leaders, also highlighted some of the successes the college said it is having through new program launches — like one for pharmacy technicians and a fast-track practical nursing program — as well as a slate of partnerships with colleges like Seneca Polytechnic and St. Lawrence College and organizations like Keewaytinook Okimakanak, Oshki Pimache-o-win and the Seven Generations Education Institute out of Fort Frances (which Salo said is taking on some students who were hoping to take culinary management at the college).
Keeping the college stable and its programming intact is important, she said, not only for the institute, but for the region’s economy. In her presentation, Salo said that one in 13 jobs is tied to Confederation College.
“I see it definitely affecting the economy,” she said of program reductions. “These programs are really important to the labour market in our area.”
“We've heard from restaurateurs (and) hotel owners around the culinary program,” Salo continued. “I've heard from businesses around our electronics program and our instrumentation and of course aerospace.”
Salo added that, with the federal government expanding affordable dental care, there will be a need for more assistants and hygienists but that currently, international graduates from those programs can’t get a post-graduate work permit.
“We're really hopeful that the federal government will change their list to include those programs.”
