Province's private colleges meeting job market demands
Schools dedicated to their graduates' success

By Melanie Furlong / Special Features Writer

Students looking for specialized training, flexible schedules and help getting straight into the job market are bound to appreciate the services a private college can offer.

Duane Yeomans, owner of Academy of Learning locations in both Halifax and Dartmouth, says the number one thing that attracts students to his college is flexibility.

"That fact is, no matter what stage people are at in their lives, they have other things going on. Our school is definitely the most flexible in schedule you.re going to find at any school around. People can start on a daily basis and choose the time they want to attend class. It's probably the number one attraction."

The Academy of Learning offers dozens of subjects, but some of the most popular programs are office administration, PC repair and networking and business administration.

"We have programs and individual courses that can be any duration as well as career training programs anywhere from seven to 12 months. It depends on the needs of the individual as we customize training to the individual," says Yeomans.

"As far as I'm aware, we're the only school that does that. We meet with clients, review their past history of education and work, sit down with them and make sure we know exactly where they've been and where they're headed. Then we can recommend a career program or a few individual courses that may do the trick."

Paul Grewal, president of Success College, a 113-year old school that began operating in Truro under the name Success Business College in 1873, says they exist for no other purpose than to help their students get the job they're looking for.

"We don't offer any program that does not (lead to) job openings," he says. "We have no level of affection for any particular industry or program. They are strictly market-based," Grewal says.

As an example, Grewal explains that their Travel and Tourism program was dropped due to the major changes in that industry.

"We offer many programs including a corrections program, training for police officers, paralegals, pharmacy technicians and dental office administration," he says. "And the programs run 60 weeks consecutively with no breaks."

Aly Rajab, founder and president of CLLC, says 19 months after the school opened it ranks close to the top of private schools offering instruction in English. He credits that to plenty of planning and hard work. He says he'd like to see the school be the top school of its kind in the country, and the only way to do it is maintain the small class size and get the word out about its work.

"Our vision is to provide our clients with high quality, sincere, timely and credible services. In order to do that we carefully choose staff and partners who share the same vision with us. The way we achieve our vision of high quality is by satisfying our team, who will in turn delight our students," Rajab says. "Our dedicated and unique team has shown commitment and passion in helping CLLC deliver its goal."

Heather Giles, of CompuCollege, says their college also offers back-to-back programs with morning or afternoon classes to allow students extra time for studying or part-time jobs.

"We're a private college, but we're also a career college," says Giles. "One of the main reasons students come here is for employment. The courses we have are all designed around employment needed in the industry and we have three people on staff that look at courses (according to) labour demand."

Their newest program, the Physical Therapy Assistant program, will begin this January.

"We're launching that in our Dartmouth location in January," she says. "We also have our information technology program, network administration courses, accounting and business administration courses, which have always been popular."

CompuCollege also has a full-time career services staff at each location.

"The main responsibility is to find students employment at the end of the program. We do a two-week job search program with them to help them look for employment," she says. "And we stay in touch with them until they're happily employed."