Colleges and institutes located in high settlement areas had some difficulty in assessing how many immigrant students are enrolled in career-focused programs because they have such high immigrant student populations, and they do not keep data on students’ immigration status. Some examples of innovative career/technical programs, and some indications of enrollments in these programs are provided below:

• Bow Valley College has 40 to 60 learners at any one time enrolled in integrated language training programs related to specific occupations. These are fairly high benchmark learners that need occupation-specific training courses. Subject areas include: accounting assistant, computer repair technology and early childhood education.
• Douglas College has a Home Support/ Resident Care (HSRC) program with May and September intakes of approximately 15 students per intake. This program combines English language training and instruction by home support resident care instructors during a preparatory semester, followed by full integration into the HSRC program with adjunct courses to support learning related to language issues in the field.
• George Brown College has up to 400 immigrant students enrolled annually in career-focused programs, including bridging programs for foreign trained professionals funded by the Government of Ontario in three areas: nursing, computer programmer and medical radiation technologists.
• Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) estimates that up to 300 immigrants attend career-focused training programs at NAIT on an annual basis in a number of programs, including laboratory and x-ray technologist programs, respiratory therapist, engineering technology, business administration and computer systems technology, accounting, finance and marketing.
• Red River College confirmed that in 2002-2003, 287 immigrants were enrolled in career- focused training programs. These were not specific career programs for immigrants but regular college programs. Red River College has adopted a unique approach that puts emphasis on facilitating the integration of immigrant students into regular career programs by offering strong support services through the Diversity and Inclusiveness Initiatives Office. This office offers free workshops for immigrant students on topics such as Advanced Pronunciation, Creative Writing and Test Taking, in addition to arranging support services such as mentor and tutoring services through the college Learning Centre.
• Vancouver Community College (VCC) estimates that up to 15,000 immigrants are enrolled in all career-focused programs college wide, including continuing education. One of VCC’s innovative programs is the Social Cultural Competencies program used in health programs to prepare health workers to better serve immigrants and also to train immigrant health care workers to get used to working in Canada by learning Canadian practices and learning to work with other cultures. This program was a separate course but is now being integrated into the curriculum for all health programs.
• Cégep du Vieux Montréal has 42 foreign trained nurses enrolled in a nursing program that aims to upgrade these nurses and prepare them to write the Quebec provincial certification exams. Three ministries jointly finance this program: Emploi Québec, MRCI and le Ministère de la Santé.

2.2.4 Bridging or Fast-Track Transition Programs

In recent years, colleges and institutes have become involved in the delivery of provincially-funded bridging or fast-track transition programs that facilitate foreign trained professionals’ credentialing and subsequently their entry into the labour market. Colleges and institutes usually deliver these programs with funding from provincial governments and in collaboration with professional associations responsible for credentialing. Through this diagnostic survey, colleges and institutes identified some key elements which should be included in these programs in order to successfully integrate immigrants into their professions. These elements are: