College students looking to transfer into university programs may soon find it a little easier.
The province’s New Credit Transfer System, set to start this fall, is a centralized system that aims to ease the frustration of trying to get course credits recognized at other schools.
Complaints from fed up students and parents led to the changes, according to Tyler Charlebois, spokesperson for Minister of Training, University, and Colleges John Milloy.
“For a number of years, we have heard from students and parents of the frustrations of trying to transfer their credits from one institution to another,” Charlebois said. “Through a new province-wide credit transfer system, we will make it easier for students to navigate the Ontario post-secondary education system, reach their preferred educational destination faster and enter or re-enter the labour market sooner.”
The system will be implemented in September and will be phased in over the next five years as part of the Open Ontario plan.
“Our first step will be to focus on high-affinity programs for college-to-university with university-to-university by full implementation,” Charlesbois said.
The current transfer system has 500 students waiting for agreement among the colleges and universities.
Catherine Labeuf went through the process of transferring from college to university in 2006. She said she could have used the help that’ll be applied this September.
“I took early childhood education in Sheridan and once I finished, I applied as a transfer student for English at Acadia University,” Labeuf said. “Not all of my credits were transferred but they did manage to take off a year worth of credits off a four-year program.”
It was a tedious process, Labeuf said.
“The waiting period was a little frustrating,” she said. “I had to make a lot of phone calls to find out what my status was. The university was slow in replying.”
To support the expansion of the system, an investment of $74 million will be given for the next five years.
Charlebois said the investment include a new Credit Transfer Information Portal that aims to allow students to easily search for transfer agreements and pathways to save the students’ time and money.
Other focuses of the investment include new supports for students at colleges and universities, such as transfer advisors and orientations and a new credit transfer innovation fund to develop and expand credit transfer pathways in demand areas.