01 August 2007

More on college+university transfer

Here's another article on the impending post-secondary enrolment crunch facing the GTA, and the suggested solution of articulating college+university programs to increase capacity throughout the system. The article suggests looking west for models - specifically Alberta and British Columbia - that show how an articulated system can work to students' advantage. As I've noted twice before, this is how I completed my undergraduate education.

As today's article says, smaller class sizes is among one of the reasons students opt for this choice, which may aid in the transition from high school to advanced education. Colleges Ontario President Linda Franklin advocates for increased articulation of post-secondary programs such as that in the west. Alberta's and BC's approach is to create provincial blocs of post secondary education providers that competes together. In fact, Alberta and BC earlier this year signed a Credit Transfer Protocol (part of the Alberta-BC Protocol of Cooperation) that is signed by individual institutions and "improves opportunities for students to receive appropriate transfer credit when moving between the two provinces' post-secondary institutions." While some have said that this would never work in Ontario's larger system, there is much to be learned from the collaborate to compete model that is open sourcing education.

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