The province has announced that colleges will now be able to offer nursing degree programs, independent of universities. That’s a welcome development to Northern College president Fred Gibbons.
“In my estimation, this is historical and good news for Northern College,” he comments.
The Timmins campus has been offering what’s called the collaborative program with Laurentian University since the year 2000.
“So Laurentian effectively shows up for our graduations to confer their diploma whereas we’ve done all the work,” says Gibbons. “This announcement recognizes the work that the colleges have been doing in most instances all along.”
Gibbons says Northern will be able to offer the program at any campus where need is demonstrated. But it will be September 2021 before anything takes effect.
He adds that the new way of doing things will eliminate bureaucracy that students don’t see… but is cumbersome for administrators.
“And it also effectively does away with, I’m going to call it licencing fees or franchise fees, for the privilege of being able to offer a collaborative nursing degree. Those fees will now disappear. So I think this is good.”
