University, Catholic school board team up
Dr. Tim McTiernan, UOIT’s president, and Anne O’Brien, the director of education for the Durham Catholic District School Board, sign a new deal that will give conditional unversity acceptances to the board’s international students, providing they keep their grades up.
By Graeme McNaughton/The Oshawa Express
Students travel from all over the world to attend Durham’s Catholic schools. Now, it will be easier for them to continue their education at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT).
The Durham Catholic District School Board (DCDSB) has signed a memorandum of understanding with UOIT that will see students recruited by the school board from priority countries given conditional offers of admission to continue their studies at the university. Those offers will become firm once the students graduate from high school with an acceptable grade point average.
Joe Stokes, the university’s assistant registrar, says this new agreement will be a benefit not only to the international students, but the domestic ones as well.
“The university has a desire to get to about six to seven per cent of our students to be international students, which is about the provincial average. We’re hoping to get to that number, and we’re almost there. We’re hoping to get to that number so that we can really bring internationalization to the classroom,” he says, adding international students currently make up five per cent of UOIT’s student body.
“Domestic students benefit from learning about other cultures and other peoples, and international students benefit from being exposed to Canadian culture and values.”
The idea that making the path between high school and higher learning easier for international students to access in Canada is of a benefit to everyone was shared by Michael Gray, superintendent for human resources and international education with the school board.
“It helps for parents that want to send their kids over for an international learning experience. It helps increase our enrolment, and it helps to internationalize our schools. When we look at our students who come from the Durham Region, it increases their global citizenship, it increases their appreciation for diversity,” he says, adding this past school year saw 22 international students from around the world attending school through the DCDSB.
“It creates better citizens, whether it’s international students or domestic.”