October 9, 2003
Private Career Training Institutions Act (Bill 52)
Second Reading Debates
R. Lee: I would like to stand to speak in support of the bill. The bill is named Private Career Training Institutions Act.
This bill actually will create more choices for students, for consumers. Despite a lot of efforts in this province to increase the number of seats in post-secondary institutes, the demand is still there — very high. For the past two years, we can see that there were almost 6,000 seats created for the post-secondary institutes. That's a tremendous increase in two years. It is about 3.7 percent.
If you look at the number of students that graduated in 2001-02, the number only increased by about 600 to 700. In terms of the population of graduates — about 39,000 — the increase in the number of student graduates was only 0.18 percent, compared to the number of seats available in that year, over two years — an average of 1.8 percent. You get ten times the number of seats increased as compared to the number of students graduating from grade 12.
Despite all that, there are also professional seat vacancies available in post-secondary institutes. For example, we have 1,800 new seats for nursing students. Those are students who are interested in pursuing a career in nursing. We understand that over, say, the past few years, we've had a shortage of nurses in our society, in our institutes. That kind of increase of, for example, 1,800 seats for nursing students is a very positive element to increase the number of professionals in our future.
I understand that in many institutes, including some private institutes, they have new programs for professional students and for nursing students. Some of those students will be coming from private institutes.
It's a very positive development for the students in this province, as well as for the nursing and the medical fields. At UBC, we understand that there will be a lot of development on the new Life Sciences Centre in cooperation with UNBC and UBC. Those kinds of training institutes are important to train future professions.
I also was very pleased to see that in terms of research and development, there is $45 million allocated for leading-edge and endowment funds. That kind of support for research and development is very important. Over the past few years, the total allocation committed for research and development and technology development is about $900 million — since June 2001. That kind of commitment by this government will go a long way in creating new areas of innovation and research in this province.
As I said, despite this kind of investment in our education system, there is still quite a lot of demand for our post-secondary institutes. The bill introduced today will actually protect the students going into private career training. That kind of protection will increase the money available in case some of the institutes fail. In the old system, the institutes put up some kind of bond that would protect the students if they cannot complete the program. But for this new kind of model, all the students, when they are entering the institute, will also help to contribute to a completion fund. That fund will be available for students who cannot complete their studies in case the institute they attend failed, but the institutes have to be registered under this kind of a model.
So for the consumers, it's very clear. If they want consumer protection, they will go to the institutes, register under this act, under this kind of model. Before, over 1,000 of our institutes were registered under PPSEC. Some of those institutes may not deliver good programs, so they fail. Under this registration procedure, the consumer will be really clear. They will see that if the registration is completed for certain institutes, they will have the protection. They can complete their studies in due course. They are independent of the success, or not, of the institute they are attending.
These kinds of registration programs are important for consumer protection. In my community, there is also some concern on the registration of ESL language institutes. Under this act, those language institutes can also register. It would be a bonus for them if they can register under this act so that the students coming to their institute will know that they are under that kind of protection too. I can imagine in the future many of those institutes, the language institutes, will voluntarily register under this act. This is not a major concern, I believe.
I would like to offer my support to this act, and I will be very pleased to see this act come into action.
