By IAN ROSS
Northern Ontario Business
A new introductory Sault College program designed to replenish the ranks of Canada’s aging railway workforce has been suspended for one year due to a lack of students.
A college official attributes the temporary postponement of the two-year signals and communications program on a late start last year in unveiling and
effectively marketing the program to Ontario students.
“We were too ambitious in our hopes for this fall,” says Sault College spokesman Rick McGee, of their partnership training program with Canadian National Railway and the Railway Association of Canada.
Only six students were registered for the academic year, four below the 10-student minimum requirement to start. The program can accommodate 25. McGee fully expects the program to launch in September 2005.
McGee says any new programming typically requires about 18 months of promotion to build awareness and secure students.
Since the college did not officially unveil the rail program until last November, they missed out on last fall’s marketing cycle in Ontario high schools.
As well, they did not receive Ministry of Education approval for the railway program until early July, since the college filed their formal program
application in April.
While McGee says the ministry responded quickly, “it was a function of a whole timing sequence” and the college could not provide prospective rail
students with any tuition information.
The signals and communications program was designed to take electronics and electrical students from a common first-year grouping and funnel them into more specialized second-year streams, learning about power supply, relays, track circuits, switches, cross warning systems and other related items.
“It’s disappointing,” says McGee. “We tried to do something very ambitious and start the program in a shorter-than-normal time frame and didn’t succeed. But our commitment to the program remains very strong and long-term.”
McGee anticipates they will easily make the minimum 10-student enrolment mark next September with a full year of program promotion planned for high schools across Ontario, particularly in the North.
CN Rail has already provided the signals and communications training equipment, which have been installed in a lab.
