Humber gives Second chance
Posted on 23. Oct, 2009 by Archivist in News
TREVOR KOROLL
NEWS REPORTER
For Ontario’s Second Career program, business is booming.
Premier Dalton McGuinty announced Oct. 14 the Second Career program has reached its three-year goal more than a year ahead of schedule.
The program was established to provide financing for the re-training of 20,000 laid-off Ontario workers.
In January 2009, the program didn’t seem to be gaining any ground, and was struggling to attract people who wanted to re-train. Out of 20,000 spots available only 3,300 were filled.
In response to the sudden increase, McGunity promised an additional $78 million for the program. The government has already sunk $355 million into the initiative, part of the $2 billion Skills to Jobs Action Plan it created in 2008.
“It was much tighter restrictions last year. You had to have been laid off within one year. It was certain programs,” said Debbie Falconi, associate registrar, admissions and service initiatives.
“When the response was not immediate, they opened the flood gates. And the flood came,” Falconi said.
“Right now the government has announced that the program is oversubscribed, they have more students than they expected to support,” said Michael Hatton, vice-president of academics at Humber.
“In the face of the financial crisis, the province developed a number of strategic responses, one of which was to provide support for people who had been laid off to go back to school to work on the development of a new career track,” said Hatton.
Administrators say Humber has around 400 Second Career students dispersed over a variety of programs. The majority are in business programs, followed closely by media and health programs.
Second Career is available for individuals who have been laid off since 2005. The government provides up to $28,000 in funding for tuition, books, dependant and living expenses. After approaching an assessment centre at Careers Ontario, the applicant applies for funding while applying to schools.
“If a student has already identified a program that they are interested in taking, then we can help them with graduate statistics, typical employers and the types of jobs that they might get,” said Karen Fast, manager at the Humber Career Centre.
The school acts as an intermediary, helping prospective students find a program while the government provides the funding.
“It works the same for every other student. So we’re a little bit unique in that. A lot of other colleges have a Second Career office, a Second Career counsellor. We don’t,” said Falconi. “You just enquire just the same as everybody else does.”
Loading ...
