OK College also not immune to challenges during COVID
Trying to manage more than 20,000 students at four campuses in the midst of a worldwide pandemic comes with many challenges, but the administration and staff at Okanagan College believe students can and will succeed when classes resume for the 2020-21 school year in September.
A much greater reliance on online teaching and learning, longer school days for students and staff, and out-of-the-box thinking are all part of the plan moving forward, said Allan Coyle, the college’s interim vicepresident of students.
Amidst that planning, though, staff is also working to help students finish what’s left in their 2019-20 year, which screeched to a halt in March as a result of COVID-19.
“Pretty quickly, within days, we switched to pretty much all online learning delivery, which required immense energy from our instructors and professors, and, of course, our students,” said Coyle.
“Many of our students have experience with online learning, but many others didn’t. It was all hands on deck and we experienced a remarkable switchover.”
While theoretical studies were offered online to thousands of students, those enrolled in hands-on programs such as nursing and trades need class time to graduate.
“In cases like trade shops, we only went so far before telling the students we had to wait to get you back in the shops and labs. We’re doing everything we can to get those students who had their studies interrupted back in to the college to finish up,” said Coyle.
Student services such as counselling, financial advising and accessibility services for disabled students were also affected by COVID-19, but have resumed online.
Graduation ceremonies for thousands of students were set to commence Friday night, but were scuttled at graduates’ request; the college decided to poll graduating students to see what their preferences were and the vast majority opted to postpone the ceremony until a later date.
“Hopefully this fall or early next year, we’ll be able to connect with all these graduates and have this graduation ceremony,” said Coyle.
Work is underway now to get ready for September, including talk about “doubleshifting” labs and shops to get more students through.
“By July 6, (students) will be able to go on our website and know exactly what is expected and what their courses look like. They will know if it’s totally online or a combination of online and in-person,” explained Coyle.
What will remain to be seen, however, is whether or not international students – who numbered 2,000 last year – return in light of COVID-19 travel restrictions.
“We are reaching out to prospective international students to find out what their plans are. Some of them find themselves in countries where they can’t travel and there are issues with student visas that would allow them to travel,” said Coyle.
“The bulk of our international students are from India and our federal government has indicated that they will be able to travel back to Canada to continue their studies after they engage in quarantine for 14 days on their arrival back.”