Created 23 October 2006 09:10

The organization representing British Columbia’s public university professors today announced the launch of the BC Degrees website (www.bcdegrees.ca) to provide prospective students with information about those institutions legally offering degree programs in the province.

“In light of the Kingston College illegal degrees scam, someone needs to provide prospective students with honest and accurate information about degree programs in British Columbia,” said Robert Clift, Executive Director of the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC (CUFA/BC). “Since the provincial government hasn’t done it, we’ve decided to do it as a public service to students and their families.”

At present, the BC Degrees website contains only basic information about those post-secondary institutions that are permitted to offer degree programs in British Columbia. The professors’ group plans to add more detailed information about degree programs, and general information about how to choose a degree program.

“Within the next few months, we will have information about every bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree program that is being offered legally in BC,” Clift said. “We are doing our part to help prevent students from being cheated in the future, but it’s really up to the provincial government to stop fraudulent institutions from operating in the first place.”

Representing 4,200 university professors, instructors, academic librarians and other academic staff at SFU (Burnaby, Vancouver and Surrey campuses), UBC (Vancouver and Kelowna campuses), UNBC, UVic and Royal Roads University, CUFA/BC monitors BC’s post-secondary education policy, conducts research, and provides advice to government on how they can improve the quality of and accessibility to post-secondary learning and research.