Toronto — The failure of Ontario's government to protect students who lost thousands after enrolling in an unregistered career college is an “unmitigated disaster” that points to a much wider problem with the province's policing of private training operators, provincial Ombudsman Andre Marin says.
In a scathing report released yesterday Mr. Marin outlines the case of Bestech Academy, a small unregistered private college that was shut down by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities last fall, leaving dozens of students in the lurch.
Calling the episode a “fiasco,” Mr. Marin says the province “failed to deliver on the promise that students in Ontario should get the education they expect,” and made 11 recommendations to prevent similar cases. They included a new “buyer beware” Web site to post warnings of illegal private career colleges and tougher enforcement to prevent such schools from continuing to operate, as Bestech did, despite several warnings from regulators.
Bestech “was allowed to line its pockets with public funds while flouting the law,” Mr. Marin said in releasing the report.
The small school, with two campuses in Southern Ontario, offered training for oil and gas burner technicians without provincial approval. Despite this, the school was given thousands in provincial retraining funds. In a bizarre turn of events, college president June Ballegeer was given a job by the very ministry investigating her school, leading the ombudsman to recommend that the ministry review its hiring practices.
Associated Press
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Mr. Marin urged the government to act quickly to tighten regulations, noting that during the current economic slowdown demand for the kind of retraining offered by private career colleges is on the rise.
The province indicated that it has accepted the report's recommendations, but it will not compensate students for lost tuition because the college was not registered with the province.
