MikeLigalig.com

Ontario Gets Failing Grade On Bogus Colleges
DAVID COOPER/TORONTO STAR

John Ratiu paid $6,500 in tuition to learn the skills required for a job in the aesthetics industry.

Now, he's too afraid to actually treat people.

"I think I did laser (techniques) in the school for ... two or three minutes. The laser is very dangerous if you don't know how to use it. You could destroy somebody's face for life," said Ratiu.

In the Wild West of Ontario's career college world, students pay their money and take their chances.

A Toronto Star investigation shows the provincial colleges and training ministry is failing to protect students from rogue schools that deliver below-grade education – or virtually no education at all.

And, incredibly, taxpayers are spending millions of dollars to pay for unemployed workers to attend these often useless courses.

Just 10 inspectors are tasked with the job of policing the 445 licensed schools across Ontario, with enrolment of about 27,000 students. Those same inspectors are also responsible for unlicensed schools that number 1,000 or more.

More than two dozen students interviewed for this story, typically low-income people seeking new careers in tough economic times, told the Star they lost money to licensed colleges and ended up unskilled, unqualified and unemployed.

Training and Colleges Minister John Milloy, in an interview this week, applauded the Star for what he called "important" work on the issue. Milloy said his ministry is "developing more teeth" to bolster what the Star and the provincial ombudsman found was a weak enforcement system too intent on helping wayward schools become compliant.

"We're in the process of developing a system that's going to protect students," Milloy said.

Critics, including opposition MPPs and provincial ombudsman André Marin, say the ministry has taken far too long to fix its problems. "We believe that it is an area where exploitation, illegality and abuse takes place without recrimination," Marin told the Star.

Career colleges are privately owned schools that deliver vocational programs. It is up to a school to apply for registration, and be issued a licence.

Tuition ranges from $1,000 to as high as $35,000, and while many students pay out of their own pocket, more than one-third receive government funding for programs. A conservative estimate suggests about $10 million in taxpayer money goes to licensed schools. Colleges with tuition under $1,000 are not subject to licensing.

The Star found Milloy's ministry so understaffed it cannot possibly protect students. In the licensed colleges alone, 27,000 students are enrolled annually.

Unlike many government-regulated groups (such as daycares), there is no routine inspection system. Instead, ministry documents reveal inspectors take a "risk-based approach" that is supposed to focus on schools perceived to have the greatest problems.

We asked the ministry for records of inspections and complaints for licensed and unlicensed career colleges. The ministry refused to release the data, labelling the Star's request a "contentious" issue. It took 30 months before a ruling by the Information and Privacy Commissioner forced the release of the database.

The records show there are significant problems at certain colleges. They also show that the ministry does not properly investigate many complaints, and the record-keeping is so poor that it is impossible to tell if the ministry is inspecting schools that are the subject of numerous complaints.

Shutting down non-compliant schools is extremely rare, according to documents the Star also obtained.

"Voluntary compliance is (the) ultimate goal," says a 2007 ministry briefing note, which Marin noted as a problem and Milloy said his ministry is moving away from now.

The database released to the Star shows 2,546 separate issues with career colleges over a recent two-year period, most dealing with licensed colleges.

About one-third are complaints or "issues," ranging from students saying the college had self-study sessions where cheating was common to students saying diplomas were handed out after little or no instruction.

There are also 900 inspection reports over the three years, focusing on about half of the licensed colleges. Issues that inspectors found include: misleading advertising by the school; a finding that the school had no academic or attendance records on file; and teachers not qualified for the program.

The remainder of the data is largely administrative comments logged as being sent to the career college.

None of this information is available to the public. On its website, the ministry publicizes a handful of notices regarding enforcement actions against schools, but prospective or current students would have no way to learn if the career college they are attending had a negative enforcement report or was the target of a large group of complaints.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=22546.0