News Online: One NAIT program saved

Published online at GlobalTVEdmonton.com on January 26, 2011.


Linda Hoang, Global News: Wednesday, January 26, 2011

One NAIT program saved

One NAIT program that had been on the chopping block for the 2011/2012 school year has been saved.

The institute’s academic council recommended on Tuesday that Medical Transcription be kept, though with some minor changes.

The news comes as a relief to current medical transcription students.

“We were ecstatic. There is such a need. There’s a line up for people to get into the program,” said Rebecca Resendes, a medical transcription student. “More importantly patients are going to continue to get the care that they need and we are going to fill this role in the health care system.”

The school is now admitting prospective students into Medical Transcription for the fall 2011 school year.

Paula Burns, NAIT’s provost and vice president academic, said medical transcription was saved because there is still enough of a demand in the industry for it, although in different ways.

“Although there might not be as many jobs in the traditional medical transcription in hospitals, there were opportunities that allowed for people to work from home. Just by making some minor changes to the program we were able to meet a different need and demand,” Burns said.

However, seven other programs were not as lucky.

The council has approved the recommendation that one-year certificate and two-year diploma programs Aircraft Skin and Structure, Avionics Engineering Technology, Graphic Sign Arts, Marine Service Technician, Power Engineering 3rd Class, Records Management and Business Operations and Telecommunications Engineering Technology be suspended, effective for the 2011/2012 school year.

Current students in those programs will be allowed to complete their studies.

The Cytotechnology program has also been kept, although recommended for alternative year intakes. It will not accept students in the coming school year but will accept the year after, and so on.

The recommendations now go to the NAIT Board of Governors who will make a decision on Feb. 7 before the final suspended programs list goes to the Education Minister who makes the final decision.

Last April NAIT announced they were planning on cutting up to 13 programs to help them deal with a $12.3 million budget shortfall.

Administrators decided to keep the programs open but each one were still subject to separate reviews leading to the decision made on Tuesday.

Click here to read the article on the Global Edmonton website.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

If you're Edmonton area, subscribe to my newsletter for hyperlocal recommendations on what to do, eat, and things to know this week!
If you're Edmonton area, subscribe to my FREE newsletter for hyperlocal recommendations on what to do, eat, things to know this week, and more!