Welcome
The Innovative Practices website is a companion to the printed Guide, “Innovative Practices - Toward Improving Student Success in Canada’s Private Career Colleges”. You can download a full copy of the Guide here (Adobe Reader required).
The website provides online access to the material in the guide and fulfills the original vision for the guide to be a “living document”. Users can contribute to the material here by sharing their own creative ideas, experiences and knowledge with others and, in so doing, help Canada’s Private Career Colleges achieve excellence in creating environments and methodologies that contribute to student success.
Participating Colleges
The following colleges have been referenced in the Guide…
Academy of Learning, Career and Business College, Winnipeg North
Winnipeg, MB
Contact: Terry Taylor
Phone: 204-582-9400
Fax: 204-582-8444
e-mail: aolwpg@mts.net
Academy of Hair Design
Saint John, NB
Contact: Karen McManus
Phone: 506-634-8044
Fax: 506-642-7551
Website: www.hairnb.com
e-mail: kmcmanus@hairnb.com
CompuCollege Atlantic
Contact: Debra Johns
Phone: 902-446-3819
Fax: 902-492-3624
Website: www.compucollege.ca
e-mail: djohns@compucollege.ca
Diamond Institute of Business and Computer
Ajax, ON
Contact: Joe Gagliardi
Phone: 905-427-1922
Fax: 905-427-2558
Website: www.diamondinstitute.ca
e-mail: joe@diamondinstitute.on.ca
Institute for Human Services Education
Truro, NS
Contact: Kimberly Elliott
Phone: 902-893-3342
Fax: 902-895-4487
Website: www.inst-hse.ca
e-mail: elliottk@inst-hse.ca
Institute of Technical Trades
Scarborough, ON
Contact: Nancy Stephens
Phone: 416-750-1950
Fax: 416-750-4702
e-mail: technicaltrade@rogers.com
Medix School
Kitchener, ON
Contact: Margaret Peppin
Phone: 519-895-0013
Fax: 519-752-2217
Website: www.medixschool.ca
e-mail: mpeppin@medixschool.ca
Rhodes Wellness College
Vancouver, BC
Contact: Denise Stroude
Phone: 604-708-4416
Fax: 604-708-4418
Website: www.rhodescollege.ca
e-mail: denise@rhodescollege.ca
Saskatoon Business College
Saskatoon, SK
Contact: Blair Chapman
Phone: 306-244-6333
Fax: 306-652-4888
Website: www.sbccollege.ca
e-mail: blairchapman@sbccollege.ca
Tourism Training Institute
Surrey, BC
Contact: Gloria Lawrence
Phone: 604-589-7456
Fax: 604-589-7419
Website: www.tourismti.com
e-mail: glawrence@tourismti.com
Universal Learning Institute
Vancouver, BC
Contact: Linda Gavsie
Phone: 604-273-2880
Fax: 604-273-3880
Website: www.trainingforjobs.com
e-mail: linda@trainingforjobs.com
Contact Us
Use the form below to send us a message…
About
The Canada Student Loans Program of Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC), in partnership with British Columbia Student Aid and the National Association of Career Colleges, contracted DLB Consulting Inc. in 2007 to conduct research that would produce a compilation of innovative practices with respect to efforts of private educational institutions toward ensuring student success. These efforts of private career colleges demonstrate the positive participation of the institutions in their students’ lives, helping students to make appropriate choices of program of study, to successfully complete their training, and to confidently move from school to work or to further education. Additionally, student success is generally understood as including the repayment of student loan debt.
Research for this project focused on practices that were implemented within six phases of college-student interaction: pre-enrollment, enrollment, attendance, early withdrawal, graduation and post graduation. These practices are derived from principles that appear to transcend institutional size. While large colleges are perhaps able to commit greater resources to a given activity, we discovered that colleges of varying student enrollments effectively utilized these practices. This document presents a number of innovative practices grouped as follows:
- Academic excellence
- Student centric core value
- Pre-enrollment assessment and testing
- Effective orientation
- Personal and financial counsel
- Internship and practicum
- Job placement assistance
- Administrative excellence
- Sector involvement
It is hoped that this website and Guide will enable private institutions to better pursue student loan repayment rate improvement plans, which can lead to reduced financial risk to the student loan program.
Finally, it is hoped that this will be a living document. Over time new approaches will be discovered that will further enhance the potential for student success. The enduring legacy of this project will, in some sense, be the extent to which Canada’s Private Career College community continues to contribute through the open sharing of ideas. In the sharing of innovative practices and lessons learned, the institutions will benefit through improvement of the services they provide to students. In private education, improving the quality of training to students is a sound business practice.