3-YEAR DEGREES SET TO LAUNCH

By Monique Doyle

Ontario colleges are working to address the shortage of skilled workers by offering three-year degree programs for the first time.

The opportunity to earn a three-year degree rather than a three-year advanced diploma –when many employers are looking for candidates with a degree – will help to ensure more students will acquire the expertise to succeed in their careers. Additionally, three-year degrees are more recognized outside of Canada and around the world.

This launch will provide a great range of career options for graduates and help drive economic growth in Ontario in important sectors like the electric vehicle industry – helping to promote a cleaner economy. It also opens more doors for graduates looking to advance into management positions.

Expanding the degree programs at colleges will fulfil the growing demand among employers for graduates with more highly specialized qualifications. But in order to participate, Ontario’s colleges need to create new three-year degree programs in career-oriented areas that are different from what students could get at university.

Until now, most of the programs offered at colleges were diploma programs. Prior to April 2022, colleges were only authorized to award degrees to graduates of their careerfocused four-year programs.

Ontario colleges are working hard to develop their three-year programs and are looking to launch these programs by fall 2023. The expanded programs are also set to provide more learning opportunities for students in rural areas and smaller communities.

Qualifications And Considerations

The Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board (PEQAB) is a leader within Canada in setting the standards for the quality assurance of degree programs and institutions. Per PEQAB’s guidelines, to qualify, the new three-year degrees need to prove the following:

Economic need – The degree program should reflect economic needs within Ontario. Colleges are required to provide evidence of the present and anticipated economic need for the program and how the program closes a skills gap in the labour force including, for example:

• An analysis of economic forecasts, job advertisements, surveys of employers, and evidence of student demand.

• The need for degree level graduates of a bachelor’s degree program in an applied area of study (e.g., from professional associations, regulatory, and/or licensing bodies).

• Evidence of employer commitments to offer placements to students for the required work experience component of the program, to hire graduates or to provide financial support for the program and/or its students.

Non-duplication – The degree program should not duplicate programs normally offered by Ontario universities. Colleges need to submit a comparison between potentially related university programs with a description of the distinctive features of the proposed program.

Peqab Manual Outlines More Details

PEQAB has developed a new manual specific to threeyear degrees at Ontario colleges. It was released January 2023 and can be found online at www.peqab.ca/ManualsGuidelines.html.

James Brown, PhD, CEO & Director PEQAB, presented at the OCASA fall conference on the outlook for new threeyear degrees. According to Brown, these are the key points about three-year degrees offered by Ontario colleges through consent and PEQAB:

• It is crucially important is that these new three-year degrees be developed from the ground up to meet the requirements of the Ontario Qualifications Framework (OQF) at www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-qualifications-framework.

• Particularly, the learning outcomes (competencies) of column 10, on the OQF, Baccalaureate, be addressed; these are the basis of PEQAB’s Degree Level Standard – the first (in every sense) Standard addressed in the PEQAB quality assurance process.

• Ontario colleges generally are well positioned to develop these learning outcomes because of their regular use of the real professionals in the area – their curriculum developers – which PEQAB regularly interacts with through the Curriculum Developers Affinity Group (CDAG). Otherwise, says Brown, there are many common features between the new three-year degrees and the four-year degrees that Ontario colleges have been offering for over two decades now.

Some of the principal distinctive features of Ontario college three-year degrees – linked to the Standards for these which PEQAB co-developed with the Ontario colleges, through the Coordinating Committee of Vice-Presidents, and the Committee of Presidents – are:

• Admissions standards – OSSD or equivalent only; no additional six Grade 12 courses at the university/college level (as required for the four-year degrees)

• Work integrated learning – 300 hours (not the 420 hours required for the four-year degrees)

• Percentage of faculty with the terminal credential –40% of students’ experience in the three-year program (not the 50% for four-year degrees)

• Breadth – 15% of the program in Liberal Arts/Breadth courses (not 20% as with the four-year degrees)

According to Brown, there were very few practical challenges of setting up the framework. “PEQAB received a directive from the Minister to create the framework in April of 2022 and had the first edition of the Manual for Ontario Colleges: Three Year Degrees up on its website in June 2022. In fact, PEQAB had already quality assured a couple of three-year degrees. The only substantial difference is the learning outcomes/ Degree Level Standard, and these are dictated by the Ontario Qualifications Framework. Otherwise it was just a matter of working out the levels of the ‘distinctive features’ of three-year degrees.”

Some colleges may be faced with challenges in finding appropriate educators for the launch of their three-year degree programs. For example, faculty already teaching similar courses on campus aren’t necessarily qualified instructors for the new three-year degrees. According to the PEQAB manual referenced above, faculty are required to hold an academic credential at least one level (one column on the OQF) higher than that offered by the program; some three-year degree programs may require an instructor with a PhD. Colleges then need to consider whether to pay for existing faculty to upgrade their credentials to meet those requirements, or whether to hire new educators who already hold the required credentials.

During Brown’s presentation for OCASA in the fall, there was considerable discussion of the concept of ‘applied areas of study.’ Said Brown: “This requirement applies to