Continuing education sign ups start at Loyalist

By Jack Carver

Thousands of registrations in some of the 850 offered courses at Loyalist College are expected for the Continuing Education program as registration starts today.

The courses are tailored to fit the needs of people who are too busy or too far away to commit to full time studies on campus.

Working on a diploma at home at your own pace, allows people to focus on other things, says the manager of the school of continuing education, Trudie Lake.

“People don’t need to get babysitters and can manage their courses around family life and working. It gives so many more people access to education,” said Lake. “I think that’s been the biggest driver for us.”

The program was first started at Loyalist when the school was founded in 1967, but caught on quickly after 1994. The program started with 32 students working over modems and spread to colleges across the province. There are approximately 65,000 students using it today across Ontario.

Lake said that she expects good numbers this year.

“Our own LMS courses that originate from here get 4700 students or better,” said Lake, “We expect about 16,000 registrations a year as students come back to continue diplomas

The continuing education program has changed a lot since its inception in the sixties said Lake. Mainly changing over to a focus on academic over general interest courses or how many people are doing the courses at the school.

“We’ve really changed the direction that part-time studies have gone in,” Lake said. “The majority of our courses are done at a distance now whereas we used to have upwards of 700 people a night in here 10 years ago, its not happening anymore. We might get 100 people coming in here now.”

Lake said that there has been a large shift from general interest courses to academic over the years.

“Twenty years ago it was probably 50-50, between general interest and academic courses. General interest used to be our biggest business. Now it’s more 85-15 per cent. I think the accessibility of the academic courses instigated that change. The earning power it gives people when they upgrade their education is critical, and that’s what this is about. ”