(Photo: Representatives from NAIT and Keyano College sign an MOU on Oct. 20, 2015 with Minister of Innovation and Advanced Education Lori Sigurdson (second from right) in attendance. Bradley Karp / REPORTER)
Local students now have the opportunity to stay in Fort McMurray and obtain a Bachelors of Business Administration degree thanks to a new agreement between Keyano College and NAIT.
The four year program is delivered in two parts, first students must complete Keyano’s two year Business Administration Diploma program. Then they can be admitted directly to year three of the BBA program at NAIT while completing the final two years of the program at Keyano’s Clearwater Campus.
“It’s been in the works for a while we signed an MOU with NAIT some months back in terms of looking at the types of programming that we would actually want to bring up here and give access to,” said Kevin Nagel, President & Chief Executive Officer, Keyano College.
Minister of Innovation and Advanced Education Lori Sigurdson was on hand to celebrate the announcement. During her speech she noted that she left her small home town for school in Edmonton and never went back.
“If students can be educated in their home communities then they stay in their home communities and contribute to their home communities,” mentioned Minister Sigurdson. “The concern of rural Alberta or more remote areas is that their young people go to the city and don’t come back. So having programs in local areas so that they can stay and be educated in is something we’re very interested in.”
The new program will offer students a variety of new career paths from a certified financial planner to sales professional. Students pick up exemptions and prerequisites in professional accounting, finance and human resource management programs.
The good news for current and prospective Keyano students is that this program isn’t going to be the last jointly offered degree program at the College.
“Our fourth degree that we’re going to have here which is an environmental science degree with Mount Royal University,” said Nagel. “So that is going to give students an opportunity to get a terminal degree here while they’re in the community, while they’re working and then continue to work once they get that and we’re also going to offer the more general MBA program from the [University of Alberta].”
Thirteen students began taking the program in September Nagle expects to have upwards of 25 students enrolled in the next cohort. In February Keyano signed a similar Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Alberta to deliver a four year Bachelor of Education program.
