BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following, from Georgian College acting vice-president of academic Maher Ghalayini, is in response to 'LETTER: International students not getting 'college experience',' published Sept. 10.
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In late August, Georgian College modified program delivery modes to five programs in response to an announcement from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) extending distance learning opportunities as many international students were still awaiting decisions about their study permit/visa applications.
To accommodate the many international students who could not travel to Canada and who were at risk of losing an entire semester, Georgian made the decision to modify specific programs, impacting approximately six per cent of the student population.
One example of a delivery mode modification was moving online for the first two to six weeks of the semester, during which time more theoretical content will be taught and the focus on hands-on, in-person learning will shift to the latter half of the semester. This will allow more time for IRCC to process more visas and allow more students to arrive for in-person studies.
Another example was to transition more programs to GC Flex, our new by-design delivery model that gives students the choice to attend class in person, online, learn at their own time and pace, or a blend of all three. Throughout the pandemic, our students told us this is the flexibility they want.
We know these unexpected changes have inconvenienced some students during the first few weeks of the semester, but in making these temporary changes we’re able to make learning accessible to hundreds of international students who are awaiting their visas and are eager to join the Georgian community, while still delivering quality content.
In addition, all student services are available to students, whether they’re domestic or international or studying in-person or online, to help them be successful.
Thousands of students joined us in-person last week for fall semester startup across our seven campuses and campus life was something we truly missed throughout the pandemic. We look forward to offering even more in-person classes in the coming weeks and thank our students for being so flexible in the ongoing pandemic environment.
Maher Ghalayini
Georgian College, acting vice-president, academic
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