Despite rumours to the contrary, the Ministry of Advanced Education says a new system for accrediting post-secondary institutions is still in the works. But there's no word on when it will finally be implemented.

Last March the ministry released the "Quality Assurance Framework Green Paper", proposing one accreditation body replace the current system of four different accreditation organizations dealing with private, public, degree-granting, and trades schools.

Despite the paper's basis in consultations with stakeholders dating back as far as 2011, an article that ran in The Tyee last August found the Green Paper was widely panned by educators and students for being a "byzantine, unwieldy entity." Some indicated at the time they thought the framework would be postponed.

The Tyee asked the ministry for comment on reaction to paper in late July, but no one was available.

Last month David Eby, the NDP's advanced education opposition critic, posted on his blog that the ministry had quietly dropped the framework. In an interview he cited senior administrators at the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology as his source, backed up by the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC. But he hadn't yet confirmed it with the ministry.

"There's such chaos at the ministry with turnover of ministers and deputy ministers that I'm not sure how they're getting anything done," he said.

But the ministry denies the framework had been shelved.

"In fact, we are undertaking additional consultations with post-secondary institutions having heard that more time was needed," said communications staff in an email to The Tyee.

"During the Phase 3 consultations, some stakeholders expressed concern about the timeline for implementation of the proposed framework so our government is continuing to work with stakeholders across the public and private post-secondary systems."

But Eby worries they'll soon run out of time for English Language Learning schools, which only have an optional accreditation system in B.C. In January the federal government announced changes to the country's student visas, requiring international students to attend institutions that meet provincial and federal academic standards in order to receive studying visas.

The schools face losing students if the B.C. government doesn't implement an accreditation system for ELL institutions in time to meet the federal government’s deadline of January 2014, which has been extended once already.

"I hope that they are going to be able to make that deadline but it sure doesn't look like it," Eby said, adding if they don't meet it, "essentially that whole sector will be wiped out almost overnight."

Katie Hyslop reports on education and youth issues for The Tyee Solutions Society. Follow her on Twitter.