enrollment

Nelson Sergerie, LJI Journalist

GASPÉ – The Cégep de la Gaspésie et des Îles is expecting 1,279 students for the fall 2024 session, which began on August 19.

This marks an increase of 42 students compared to last year and 147 more than in the fall 2022 session.
“The CEGEP is doing great promotional activities in the Gaspésie but also in Quebec with some 250 students coming from other regions of Quebec. We have about 120 foreign students and we have better retention of students from the Gaspésie. It’s a multitude of factors,” explains the Director of Studies, Serge Rochon.

Among these factors, the Director notes the twenty or so programs offered, the small groups of students, and the close relationships between professors and students, which promotes success.
“We have positioned our educational institution well in recent years, and we have more and more students in our classrooms,” he continues.

New measures were put in place to allow foreign students to come and study in Canada despite strict rules.
“We are managing to maintain the number of international students. Last year was a record year. We are maintaining these students who come from France and African countries. This is good news for our study programs, as it allows us to maintain them,” explains Mr. Rochon.

The revision of the Childhood Education Technique program is still underway. “We are going to equip ourselves with a new version of the program. We started our work last winter and we will finish it this year. This is a program where we had no registrations last year. We are going to significantly modify the study program that we will present in a few weeks,” indicates the director of studies, recalling the significant need for workers in the region.

The same reflection will be done with the Aquatic Products Transformation program offered in Grande-Rivière. “The program has been suspended for several years. We are going to start a major project this year to try to look at it in depth and see how we can make it attractive for a relaunch at the UPAQ,” emphasizes Mr. Rochon.

The Police Technology program is under development at the Gaspé campus. “We are starting to hire our first professors. We have a version of the program that is not completed but is very advanced. We will be able to unveil it very soon because we will soon begin our promotional activities,” emphasizes Mr. Rochon.
The first policing students are expected at the start of the fall 2025 school year. The work to build the laboratories for this training will be done during the year. “We need to create some pretty specific laboratories. We’re talking about apartments, bars, and police stations where we do all sorts of simulations. We’re going to prepare everything over the course of the year to be ready for the start of the 2025 school year,” says the director.

As for the idea put forward this summer by politicians to train wildlife officers in the region due to a labour shortage, particularly in this region, the CEGEP has not been contacted.

“There are other CEGEPs in Quebec that offer this training. Sometimes, it’s difficult to set up the program everywhere in the territory. We have a lot of programs at the Cégep de la Gaspésie et des Îles, and sometimes it becomes difficult to add more since we already have Police Technology. We’re always listening and, if we can meet a need in the region, we’ll be there,” says Mr. Rochon.

International students

The CEGEP believes that it is too early to comment on the Quebec bill that would limit the number of foreign students in the province.

The Coalition Avenir Québec government intends to table a bill in the next parliamentary session to regulate the registration of international students in higher education institutions.
Since the content of the bill is not yet known, the CEGEP is unable to determine what the impacts of the legislation would be on its activities.

The college welcomes about 120 foreign students this year, representing nearly 10% of the student body.
The CEGEP indicates that it will monitor the situation closely.