By Colton Swiderski

Enrollment in North-West College remains steady

Sep 9, 2016 | 12:52 PM

Enrollment at the Meadow Lake and Battlefords North-West College campuses remains on par compared to past years with a bulk of the students being of Aboriginal descent.

On average, 50 per cent of the roughly 2,600 students are Aboriginal.

“We’re a provincial leader in Aboriginal education,” Dr. Victoria Lamb-Drover said. “Our employment rates and student satisfaction rates are among the best in the province.”

More than 80 per cent of North-West College students find employment within 60 to 90 days of graduation which Lamb-Drover credits to the job coaches and program planning.

North-West College only offers programs for work in industries with job availability.

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“We have a co-ordinator who uses Conference Board of Canada data and local knowledge of industry development to set our programming guide twice a year,” Lamb-Drover said. “It tells us where we are economically in the region and where it’s looking like we’re going to go. From that, we set our program plan.”

Students also get the opportunity to do work placements which Lamb-Drover said, often lands them jobs post-graduation.

North-West College offers programming through the University of Saskatchewan, University of Regina and Sask. Polytechnic. Tuition fees are set by the universities so costs are on par with the rest of the province.

Programs offered include skills training such as health care, community service, trades and business. It also offers EAL programming, adult basic education courses and online training programs.

While not available until November, Lamb-Drover said the 2016-17 enrollment is on par with past years. She added, numbers are relatively even between the north and south campus with the latter having slightly more students.

With campuses in Meadow Lake, North Battleford, Leoville, Big Island Lake and other north-west communities, the college tries to keep programming consistent across the region.

“We have fantastic facilities in Meadow Lake for welding, electrician and heavy equipment programs. The Battlefords campus doesn’t have the onsite facilities so we have to rent third party space for it,” Lamb-Drover said. “In the south we have a bed lab for practical nursing. It’s sort of a split between having a centre of trades excellence in the north and a centre of health excellence in the south.”

Today, Sept. 9, the Meadow Lake campus is having a welcome back barbecue over the noon hour.

Colton Swiderski is meadowlakeNOW’s municipal affairs, crime and court, health and education reporter. He can be reached at cswiderski@jpbg.ca or tweet him @coltonswiderski.