Recent History – 1999
Dec. 8, 1999
If you ask former students, there is no better college than Northern Lights. The northern B.C. post-secondary institute ranked first among 21 provincial institutions surveyed in the recent Student Outcomes report.
Former students of the institutions were asked their opinion in college experience, skill development, overall satisfaction and employment outcomes categories.
Jim Kassen, president of Northern Lights College, is proud of what the college has achieved and says that the Outcomes Report confirms how well they have met the needs of students.
“If an institution’s responses are statistically significant in a way that is much higher or much lower than the provincial averages, one can get a rough comparison of institutional performance,” he says.
“The items that NLC rated significantly higher than average included, as an example, overall satisfaction with studies, quality of teaching and usefulness of training in performing one’s job.”
Kassen says that there is still room for improvement and that the college is always looking for ways to increase the level of service for students.
The college also has the highest utilization rate in the province, 111 per cent, this according to a comparison of the provincial institutions from the Ministry of Education.
This comparison looks at the actual number of full time equivalent students (FTEs) attending the institution against the money given to the institution over a three-year period.
“This high utilization rate clearly demonstrates how hard the college’s staff is working to support the significant increase in the number of students we serve,” says Kassen. “The staff has done a terrific job of meeting this increased demand, however we are looking towards the ministry to better match funding with our FTE numbers in order to reduce stresses in the system.”