11/4/2009 4:14:14 PM
Despite a declining high-school population in Newfoundland and Labrador, College of the North Atlantic is reporting significant increases in several program areas, and an overall enrollment increase of 4%.
Campuses reporting the largest increases in enrollment include Port aux Basques with a 20% increase, Clarenville with 25%, and Happy Valley-Goose Bay with an increase of 17%. The college’s Distributed Learning Service (online learning) saw enrollment grow by an amazing 91% over the previous year.
“Many of these increases can be attributed to corresponding increases in the college’s capacity, meaning we have expanded programs allowing us to offer more seats to students. But we have also seen significant rises in participation in some of our programs that can only be explained by increased interest in these areas of study by potential students,” says Cyril Organ, the college’s vice president, Academic.
Organ also explained that government investments have played a key role in aiding the capacity increases. The Provincial Government and, more directly, the Department of Education’s continued investment in the college has provided it with ability to address the needs of the provinces workforce and aid in economic development initiatives.
The college’s Refrigeration and Air Conditioning, Power Engineering, and Instrumentation and Control Technician programs all saw increases of 200% or more. Powerline Technician saw an increase of 130%, while the Business Administration (HR Management) offered through Distributed Learning saw an increase of a whopping 433%.
Also significant is the growth in enrollment for the college’s access programs such as Adult Basic Education (ABE) and the Comprehensive Arts and Science (CAS) Transition and Transfer programs. The three ABE offerings (the regular program, the evening program and the literacy program) saw increases of 10%, 60% and 43.5% respectively. The CAS Transition program increased its enrollment by 59%, while the Transfer program increased by 40%. Not one campus offering either CAS option identified a decrease in enrollment.
“These increases in the access programs are significant because many of the students in ABE and CAS Transition are people who could easily fall through the cracks and not pursue post-secondary education and ultimately not enter the province’s workforce,” says Organ. “We’ve had tremendous success helping people ladder from ABE or CAS into regular college programming and then on to rewarding careers.”
Also significant is the increase in the Licenced Practical Nurse enrollment, which is up 84%, nearly doubling the number of people in training to become an LPN this year (from 123 in 2008 to 226 in 2009).
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For more information contact:
Roger Hulan
Communications Specialist
College of the North Atlantic
(709) 643-7938
roger.hulan@cna.nl.ca