Medicine Hat College discontinues ESL programs over lack of enrolment. 

By Gates Guarin

Medicine Hat College discontinues ESL programs over lack of enrolment

May 9, 2022 | 2:13 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – The English as a second language program will no longer be offered at Medicine Hat College. The college made the decision to discontinue both the English for Academic Purposes and ESL for new Canadians courses due to a lack of enrolment.

Timothy Spielman, MHC’s dean of business and continuing education, says numbers had already been declining for a number of years.

“It was about vitality and sustainability,” Spielman says. “Those two programs have diminished significantly over the last five years. COVID absolutely did play a role, but they were in decline pre-COVID.”

Spielman says it was not in the best interest of the college to continue offering these classes.

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“For us, to carry on unsustainable programming is just irresponsible.”

Spielman did explain how the college is promoting government-based programs if people were still interested in taking ESL classes.

“There are other government programs that we’ve been guiding the students towards,” Spielman says. “We do actually manage two of them for the province – one for the province of Alberta, and one for the federal government. So that’s the LINC and ABLE programs.”

Spielman did not rule out a return of the programs in the future but said consultation was being done with students to determine what skills-based training would be important to have.

The LINC program is currently being offered at MHC Brooks campus and at Saamis Immigration Services, while the ABLE program is being offered at Palliser Primary Care Network.