Work continues throughout Okanagan College to mitigate educator layoffs.
To date, four educators through the college's four campuses in Vernon, 琉璃神社, Penticton, and Salmon Arm have been given layoff notices as the college prepares for the start of September 2025 classes. The college, in February, projected possibly as many as 35 notices, primarily in the business and arts portfolios.
Declining enrolment at the 60-plus-year-old institution, and rules regarding international students, have forced Okanagan College to review things throughout most of 2025.
"We're at a situation right now where we've been able to take some steps to mitigate the number of layoffs, and that's through people making voluntary choices, whether it's through early retirement or other choices, to proceed to be able to mitigate those layoffs," said Jennifer Goodwin, OC's vice-president of enrolment and college relations. "And at the same time, we're still exploring whether we might have further need to do that."
In February, the college shared with its community and the public impacts of sudden federal changes to policies, in particular governing international students, were having on the institution.
With the changes, the college anticipates a drop of nearly 50 per cent of new international students that would enrol at Okanagan College this fall. Translating that into head counts or actual student numbers across all of the campuses, said Goodwin, there would be approximately 700 fewer new students starting in September compared to prior years.
"That's quite a substantial impact," she said. "In the winter, we knew that type of drop in demand would require us to contract our operations, or would require us to begin a process where, essentially, we were reviewing our operations and moving forward with some workforce reduction strategies.
"I think anybody can understand that when we have fewer students, there's less demand and, therefore, we're looking at few course sections or fewer class offerings required."
Back in February, the college indicated that 30-to-35 potential instructional positions could be impacted. But as of Aug. 18, the number was four – three in the arts portfolio, one in trades.
"We're looking across the college at opportunities to again be able to make adjustments, whether that's through restructuring or other changes," said Goodwin. "And there has been, I want to say, around 15 positions in support service or non-unionized or management positions that have been impacted through this time period as well.
"Some of that is directly due to declining enrolment, like where we might have a service that is impacted by having fewer students. Others are due to sort of operational decisions, to be able to be offer services and supports to students into the organization in a way that matches what we need."
An early retirement program was offered to those instructors that were interested as a way to mitigate the layoffs.
Concrete enrolment numbers for OC still are not known with events like the current Air Canada labour dispute possibly impacting the number of international students that would start in September if they can't get to the Okanagan on time.
"Typically we have what we call stable enrolment by the end of September, early October," said Goodwin. "And that's where we know how many students have actually showed up to class that have paid their tuition and are fully registered into courses."
Tuition deadline is early September.
"There's still sort of a time period between now and early fall where we'll be stabilizing from an enrolment perspective and continuing to adjust," said Goodwin. "Whether in some areas, that's adding instructors or that might be continuing to make adjustments."
The complex enrolment situation, she said, will be monitored closely through the first month, and it's something all post-secondary institutions are experiencing.
"This is something we're living right now," said Goodwin. "It's an ongoing stress on everyone, and I really want to underscore we totally appreciate that, the impact it has on employees, to be walking through this challenging time.
"As such, as an organization, we're doing what we can to support our team members, and obviously to keep the students at the centre of what we're doing and trying, to make sure we're clear in communications, and have the information that they need available."
