BOYLE — Portage College is experiencing a boom of funding and industry interest, allowing the institution to focus on investments into equipment upgrades and expanded programming to meet workforce demands in the coming years, according to president and CEO Nancy Broadbent.
Broadbent was joined by Dr. Donna Feledichuk, vice president of academics and research May 15 in Boyle council chambers to provide local officials an update on the college’s fiscal status, industry data from Northern Alberta, and innovative ideas on how to solve local issues by harnessing global trends.
“The college is stronger than we’ve ever been,” said Broadbent. “We’ve never had more money, more students, more programming being developed, so we’re doing really, really well.”
Enrolment has seen a boost across the seven northern Alberta campuses, with approximately 1,700 credit students around 3,000 non-credit students taking courses. The pair noted these numbers are a significant jump compared to the typical 900-some credit students per year seen since the ‘90’s.
Broadbent said the increase in non-credit students is largely due to private partnerships in urban centres, and many of the learners are international students in business programs. But recent changes to Post Graduation Work Permit criteria put in place in January of this year will mean Portage can’t count on those numbers in the future.
“We’re really looking at what investments can we make now with the revenue that we have to stabilize the college’s revenue and maybe grow other programming to keep the revenue coming in,” said Broadbent.
According to Broadbent, Portage is expecting to see a surplus of $10 million at the end of 2024 after a $3 million investment into upgrading programming, equipment, and classroom modernization across its locations.
“I’m excited to hear that, finally, the province is understanding the value of what you guys have offered for years,” said Mayor Colin Derko. “It sounds like you guys have the ear of the right people, which is exciting.”
In conjunction with Lakeland College, Portage completed a study on major projects in Northern Alberta in the next six years to determine how many positions in which industries will be needed, and where gaps exist in the current workforce.
“In the Alberta HUB region, which Lakeland College and I share, we have about $19 billion worth of projects that are coming from 2024 to 2030,” said Broadbent. The study did not include funds from Red Wolf Corporation’s project plans, which will total around $810 million in investment into the region.
Related: $810 million in capital investment announced for Boyle
In the same timeframe, Broadbent said 15 per cent of jobs, or 53,000 positions, opening up in the province will be within Portage’s service area.
“We’re using a lot of this data to get to our ministry to say, ‘It’s time, you need to give us more trades, you need to give us carpentry back and give us a couple other trades,’” said Broadbent.
Program expansions
“One of the biggest asks we have continually gotten is about teachers and teacher training, everyone is short teachers,” said Feledichuk. Portage is submitting an application to the government to be able to provide a Bachelor of Education program, which will be reviewed over the summer.
“Hopefully it will be fast-tracked because there is a shortage everywhere, and I don’t know of a school division in our region that is not telling us that they need teachers,” added Feledichuk.
Healthcare programming demand is also growing — Feledichuk said Portage’s paramedic program expanded by 24 students in 2024, and the nursing program expanded by 36 students.
The institution is also applying to offer programming for occupational therapy and physical therapy assistants, as well as addictions workers.
Feledichuk noted the college is entering preliminary conversations with the University of Alberta around moving delivery of nurse practitioner training to rural campuses like Portage’s facilities.
“It makes a lot of sense for what we’re trying to accomplish in a rural area,” said Derko. “We’re not trying to do open-heart surgery in the Boyle hospital, it’s not about that. It’s about not jamming up all those other hospitals. The nurse practitioners just make sense, so having them train here makes sense as well.”
According to data presented by the pair, Portage has identified power engineering as an understaffed field in the province, with more than 100 unfilled positions as of 2024. Feledichuk said Portage is looking at adding a second cohort to increase the program’s capacity.
“We have 32 fourth year power engineering students and about the same in third class, and we have 70 placement requests, so we don’t even have enough students to meet the demand for industry placements,” said Feledichuk.
The college will also be offering a computer sciences diploma — upgraded from the certificate currently offered — as well as a kinesiology diploma in 2025, and will reopen their steamfitter and pipefitter training programs.
Boyle specifics
Broadbent and Feledichuk provided councillors with an update on issues specifically impacting Boyle as part of their presentation.
The driving program offered at the Boyle campus is growing in popularity recently, with an influx of students effectively doubling the program size. Portage is looking to rebuild their heavy equipment operator program offered out of Boyle, with new face-to-face courses on washboard-free grading and other subjects on offer for 2025.
Portage staff are also working on revitalizing connections within Boyle School with the return of dual credit introduction to trades opportunities for high school students. Broadbent said the college is currently only offering their intro to trades programs in St. Paul and Northern Lights division schools for the year and will expand it outwards if other divisions are interested.
Also on Portage’s radar are Red Wolf Corporation’s project plans for the area. With an oilfield transfer centre slated for construction in Boyle, Broadbent said the two organizations have been discussing opportunities for collaboration for a while.
“I’ve been meeting with Red Wolf for two years now, and we’ve done lots of scenario planning,” said Broadbent. “They’ve committed to us that one of the things they want to do is work with us on training people in their facility.”
The college is also eyeing the possibility of using alternative energy in new builds and facilities on the Boyle campus to create a training and education destination and solve the issue of aging student housing.
“Although it’s a bit niche right now, there is lots of this intentional communities and permaculture growing and growing local food and living off the land,” said Broadbent. “There is a big market for people that are dabbling in it, what I call urban agriculturalists.”
The mention of housing did spark interest from Derko, who suggested Portage’s idea of mini alternative energy mini houses that students could both train on and live in during school months, which could provide another opportunity for collaboration.
“One of the things we’re looking at is housing for doctors and nurses,” said Derko. “My vision on it would be that it’s something kind of different, and something that’s unique that would actually be functional and educational.”
