Kelowna News

The five public post-secondary institutions providing education and training to British Columbia’s Southern Interior are joining forces to collaborate on new training opportunities and services.

Leaders from the College of the Rockies, Selkirk College, Okanagan College, University of British Columbia Okanagan and Thompson Rivers University recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding that links the institutions to create better integration of the learning opportunities and services for citizens of the Southern Interior.

“We expect that over the next years, we’ll see a host of program and service partnerships arise as a consequence of this agreement,” says Okanagan College President Jim Hamilton.

“This agreement formalizes our commitment to work together in important areas such as enrollment planning and academic programs,” says Doug Owram, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Principal, UBC Okanagan. “The students are the big winners when institutions work together.”

Together, the five institutions serve a population of more than 720,000 people in the interior, and collectively educated more than 73,000 students in 2008-09.