2007 Highlights - OACC

In November of 2005, OACC had requested that a moratorium on the collection of KPI data by OSAP designated institutions be put in place, until the final policy on the types of indicators and methodology that would be in place for all PCCs had been determined.  In the fall of 2006, the Ministry announced that there would be a moratorium on the KPI process for OSAP designated colleges for 2006-07, and repeated that announcement in the fall of 2007 for 2007-08. 

 

The OACC committee met with program officials and third party providers to discuss issues of concern like timing of approvals, apparent slowdowns in approvals resulting from annual budget restraints and the lengths of programs being approved.

 

June 18. An advisory committee, made up of career college owners from a broad range of program areas suggested to the Ministry by OACC, met with the Deputy Minister, two Assistant Deputy Ministers, the Superintendent of PCCs, and policy staff. The advisory committee discussed the pending Ministry transformation, potential cross-sectoral committees on quality, program standards, credit transfers, smart regulation, the terms of reference, evaluation of effectiveness of the PCC Act 2005, Employment Ontario, key performance indicators, third party program assessors and the Ontario Qualifications Framework

 

May 29. The OACC International Committee held a mini-conference for members in Toronto focused on quality assurance. It featured presentations on VQA, culture shock for international students and an Internet-based English language proficiency test designed with PCCs in mind. 

 

September 19. The committee held a second mini-conference for members in Mississauga focused on Asia. It featured Korean and Japanese dishes, a mini Mandarin Chinese lesson, information on medical and travel insurance for international students, and an overview of NACC activities relating to international student recruitment by career colleges.

 

February and July. Members of OACC’s Program Standards Committee met with the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities to discuss program approval requirements for IT certification programs.

 

August 24. The Superintendent of Private Career Colleges announced the completion of the Ontario Qualifications Framework for all postsecondary certificate, diploma and degree programs offered under Ontario’s auspices. The framework includes apprenticeship certificates (“qualifications” as the term appears in the document) to be awarded by private career colleges, public colleges and degrees offered by public universities and institutions authorized to award degrees by ministerial consent.

 

April 3, May 14, May 25. OACC members participated in meetings of the Ministry’s joint working group on TCAF to discuss the recruitment process for TCAF board members, a strategy for recruiting a student representative to the board, the TCAF premiums invoicing process, draft instructions for public accountants and TCAF fact sheets.  As a result of these discussions, the Ministry agreed with OACC’s proposal to allow small PCCs with gross annual tuition revenues under $250,000 to be able to submit Notice to Reader financials rather than Review Statements as first proposed.  The Ministry also agreed to allow the management at career colleges to prepare the various schedules required as part of the financial reporting rather than the colleges’ auditor, thereby significantly reducing the cost of the provision of financial data required by TCAF. 

 

January - March. OACC went through the Request for Qualifications and Request for Proposals process with respect to developing a transcript protection service for members as required in Regulation O. reg. 415/06. As a result of this process, a contractor was selected and work was begun on the development of the web-based solution known as STEPS (Student Transcript Electronic Protection System). 

 

June - July. OACC received an RFP for organizations wishing to become Ministry pre-approved vendors for student transcript maintenance and issuance. A response to the RFP was submitted by OACC by the July 4 deadline and OACC was one of the pre-approved vendors announced by the Ministry on July 18.

 

September. OACC’s committee met weekly with the developers from early April until the site was launched in September. Since the launch, OACC staff have worked with career colleges and the website developers to ensure a smooth implementation of the transcript upload and storage processes.  To date, OACC has agreements to provide transcript maintenance and issuance services to more than 320 career college locations and more than 32,000 transcripts have been uploaded and/or stored with STEPS.