Advanced Education and Literacy Manitoba

College Expansion Initiative

Operating Framework

The College Expansion Initiative is intended to be a catalyst for the growth and evolution of Manitoba's college-system and is strongly supported by Government which has established a dramatic increase in training opportunities for all Manitobans as an economic priority.

The Initiative addresses the need to reverse the chronic underdevelopment of colleges, which is hampering provincial prosperity and has relegated Manitoba to the bottom of inter-provincial training comparison.

Note: CEI’s Operating Framework was shared with, and approved by, all four colleges.

Goals

The College Expansion Initiative was established to:

• Address labour market needs by reducing important skill shortages
• Pay particular attention to the needs of under-served groups
• Enhance youth participation rates
• Improve student success by concentrating on retention and graduation rates
• Encourage innovative means to make the system more efficient, e.g. Prior Learning Assessment (PLA), learning technologies, etc.
• Stimulate workplace-based programming that improves the skills of those in the existing workforce