Renee Andor
Black Press
COURTENAY — North Island College's utilization rate reached nearly 90 per cent of its target in the past year — the highest rate in over a decade.
According to director of college and community relations Susan Auchterlonie, the college reached 89.3 per cent of its utilization rate target during its 2012/2013 fiscal year. She's very pleased with the rate, especially considering the way the college is set up.
"Given the way we operate, the regional delivery that we have to do, multi-campus, smaller class sizes, 100 per cent's just not reasonable — we likely won't ever achieve that," says Auchterlonie, noting NIC's utilization rate for 2013/2013 was one of the highest of all B.C. colleges.
She adds the college exceeded its targets in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Practical Nursing programs.
According to the final FTE (full time equivalent) report, the college had a total of 2,541 FTEs in 2012/2013. NIC also had 104 international student FTEs enrolled.
The Comox Valley campus produced 1,167 FTEs this past year, up from 1,138 the previous year.
"It's really wonderful to see the increase year over year," says Auchterlonie of NIC's growing enrolment numbers. "Particularly at the Comox Valley campus, we're seeing a lot of interest in sciences, math, enrolments are very, very strong, business program, very strong, so it just speaks to the quality of instruction we're providing, the options we're providing incoming students, as well as the pathways we've carved out from North Island College to wherever the students want to go."
The college continues to expand on agreements with other post-secondary institutions, such as the dual admission and guaranteed admission agreements with the University of Victoria.
Agreements with other post-secondary institutions have "really increased our numbers of direct high school entries significantly," says Auchterlonie. "It just adds a different dynamic to our classrooms and they're excellent students that are coming, so we're really excited about that."
For more information, visit www.nic.bc.ca.