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February 17, 2015

Colleges and Institutes Supporting the Integration of Immigrant Symposium

Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan) held its Colleges and Institutes Supporting the Integration of Immigrants conference last week in Ottawa. The event gathered college experts, immigrant advocates, community workers and leaders from the private sector for some fascinating discussion on this very important topic and on the impact of the Express Entry program on international students. Many presentations throughout the event emphasized the importance of working collaboratively to improve opportunities for new Canadians and help them integrate both their new communities and the Canadian workforce. Given the importance of education in this regard, as well as the impressive reach of colleges and institutes in communities across the country, there is little doubt that CICan members have a key role to play in supporting immigrant integration. However, in order for them to maximize their impact, it is important for colleges and their partners to adopt a holistic approach to put in place structures, programs and services to effectively support immigrants.

Did you know?

Champlain Regional College has developed a career site application that gives student access to job postings anytime and anywhere. Students can submit applications to the college, and external candidates can also apply for positions. The app can even send customized job postings to candidates after they have identified their employment preferences and their skill sets.
This week was a busy one for CICan, and for our CIIP program! Indeed, CIIP hosted a consultative conference on February 11th and then CICan jumped right into our Colleges and Institutes Supporting the Integration of Immigrants Symposium. Both events went swimmingly, and the CICan staff did a fantastic job. I also had the chance to connect with five experts from the Netherlands’ Ministry of Education. They were in Ottawa to meet with Canadian counterparts and potential partners to discuss matchmaking between Dutch and Canadian institutes as well as research cooperation. We also discussed an upcoming visit from the Netherlands’ Minister of Education who will travel to Canada with representatives from 20 Dutch universities and colleges. I am truly excited for these education representatives to see what Canada’s colleges and institutes have to offer! These meetings were quite promising, and it’s always interesting to hear international education perspectives. The other big event of the week was the CICan Board meeting. This was a great opportunity to go over our achievements of the past few months and discuss future endeavours. As always, it was great to receive feedback from our board members.

Congratulations!

Louis Gendron has been named the Director of Collège de l’Assomption. Mr. Gendron has worked in the education sector for over 25 years. He was previously the director of continuing education and business services at Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe. He will begin his term on March 16.   

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