More than 2,000 drop out from Humber College following strike

Dec 13, 2017 | Campus News

By: Murissa Barrington and Tyson Lautenschlager

Humber College revealed to Humber News today that 2,201 students have dropped out from their programs after the five-week long college faculty strike.

Humber’s Director of Communications, Andrew Leopold, said the withdrawals make up 8.3 per cent of the school’s enrollment rate.

“We certainly did encourage our students to consider staying in school and with their programs,” Leopold said. “I know our faculty and our students and schools overall are working hard together to try to make sure that students who have withdrawn will come back in January or September.”

The Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development, Deb Matthews, announced the official numbers yesterday, less than a week after they were originally scheduled to be announced.

The minister said 10.3 per cent of students province-wide decided to drop out of school after the strike. In all, just under 25,700 full-time students withdrew from their programs.

“Over the past months, I have heard from students about hardships they have experienced as a result of this strike. It is clear that they have borne the brunt of the labour dispute between colleges and faculty,” Matthews said in a statement. “Preliminary reports from colleges indicate that the vast majority, approximately 90 per cent of students, chose to stay and finish the semester. Further, we expect many students who withdrew this semester will re-enroll in college in January and September, continuing their education in a new term.

“I want to say to those students who did decide to withdraw, we hope you will return to college. We need your talent and skills in this province and want to keep seeing you succeed. We will work with colleges to support and encourage students to re-enroll.”

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Matthews also said drop out numbers could change over the coming weeks depending on additional data.

“The numbers we have today are still not completely final: we expect to receive final numbers from colleges within the next week, and will share if the withdrawal rate changes further.”

Humber had the highest number of drop outs in Ontario colleges after the strike but the number isn’t indicative of the school’s drop out rate since the institution has the largest enrollment of colleges in Ontario.

Of the 2,201 students who dropped out, 179 were international students.

While the final numbers for Humber have been released, Leopold said he didn’t have the numbers by each individual academic school.

With files from Wrence Trinidad.