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Overhaul BC's Private College Regulator: Critics

Students at traditional medicine college surprised to learn they can't practice, but school denies wrongdoing.

Katie Hyslop 1 Feb 2012TheTyee.ca

Katie Hyslop reports on education and politics for The Tyee. Read her previous stories here.

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NDP post-secondary critic Michelle Mungall: 'BC is the only province that allows the private post-secondary industry to self-regulate.'

It took Stephen Harvey seven years of school and over $50,000 to earn his doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine certificates from the Shanghai Traditional Chinese Medicine College. But when he applied for a licence to practice his trade, he was denied. His education, he was told, was worthless.

Harvey is one of several students who attended the Shanghai Traditional Chinese Medicine College in Burnaby, which purported to offer students instruction in acupuncture and train students to become "doctors" of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

But despite being authorized by the Private Career Training Institute Association of B.C. (PCTIA) -- an arm of the provincial government that regulates private post-secondary institutes -- Shanghai TCM's programs don't meet the standards set by the Canadian Traditional Chinese Medicine Association (CTCMA), which issues practicing licenses.

"Because of the way that the whole thing went down, I can't use the majority of my education," Harvey told The Tyee, adding he still owes National Student Loans $43,000 and is seeking loan forgiveness.

"If I wanted to start over and pursue the TCM again, it would essentially be starting from square one. I would have to go do prerequisite courses again at university for two years before even applying back to a TCM university."

It's a sign to Michelle Mungall, the New Democratic Party's post-secondary education critic, that the provincial regulator is failing to represent students' best interests.

"The school was accredited by PCTIA; at no point did PCTIA investigate whether its credentials were indeed true and valid, and that is outside the PCTIA mandate, according to both their legislation and their bylaws," says Mungall, adding PCTIA's board is composed of private college representatives.

"It's not because the people who are on the board aren't committed to the best interests of students, it's just self-regulation in this type of industry is not the general practice. In fact, B.C. is the only province in this country that allows the private post-secondary industry to self-regulate."

'Why would we enroll if we knew it was fraud?'

Harvey was the first student from the Shanghai College to appeal to PCTIA for his $51,000 of tuition funding to be returned, and his application was approved. But his classmates weren't so lucky.

Constance Batore, who graduated from the college with a certificate for the holistic health science post diploma and a certificate for completing the program of acupuncture and doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, appealed to PCTIA with several of her fellow classmates after Harvey told them their certificates were worthless. But their applications were denied.

"They said we were actually six months past our date of knowing," says Batore.

"One student asked 'What was my date of knowing?' and (PCTIA) said, 'Oh, it was when you enrolled into the school.' But because we're being defrauded, we had no idea that was the case, so why would we enrol in the school if we knew it was a fraud?"

Because there is no formal appeals process for PCTIA, the students contacted their MLAs, who suggested they get in contact with Mungall and the Ministry of Advanced Education. Batore says only Mungall returned their calls.

Mungall conducted her own research on the school, coming across a CTV report on Harvey's experience where a reporter went undercover at the Shanghai TCM College to determine if students were being defrauded.

Concerned, Mungall appealed to the board to review their decision, which they did, but determined it was sound and refused to refund the students' money. Mungall says the only other recourse now is for the students to sue the school's founder, Sky Willow, while Batore says they have contacted the B.C. ombudsman, but have yet to hear back.

For their part, both PCTIA and Willow maintain the students knew their certificates would not authorize them to practice acupuncture or earn the title of doctor of traditional Chinese medicine.

"They were registered in a holistic program, they were not registered in an acupuncture program, so the issue was they could not practice acupuncture after they left that program. There was acupuncture offered at that school, but these particular students were not in that program," maintains Luce Lafontaine, legal counsel for PCTIA.

She says that because some of the students filed affidavits in a court injunction brought against Willow, they knew enough in advance to apply earlier than they did for tuition refunds.

Willow, also known as Tien Hu Liu, says students knew they were taking a holistic program, not a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine program, which has a prerequisite of two years of university.

"The high school graduates couldn't get into the Chinese medicine (program). They like to come to Shanghai TCM, but they don't have the two years of university. So for the high school graduate, we have a holistic program," Willow told The Tyee.

Both Batore and Harvey deny they were just in the holistic program, saying they both underwent "hundreds of hours" of acupuncture training and took prerequisite classes offered by Shanghai College after Willow told them they were an alternative to completing two years of university.

They claim Willow told them they didn't need to take the BC College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists (CTCMA) license exams, that they could take an exam from the Council of Natural Medicine College of Canada (CNMCC), located in Ottawa. The investigation by CTV found the CNMCC's address was a post office box that forwarded its mail back to the Shanghai TCM College.

"(Willow) was saying that he was with the one in charge of the licenses, he was with the CNMCC, and they had approved of those licenses and he would issue them to us if we took his license exam," Batore told The Tyee. "No matter what was happening with the CTCMA, he always guaranteed that we would be able to practice anyway. We were just thinking it was political, we could practice with a different license."

From government to self-regulation

Mungall isn't convinced PCTIA is doing its best for students, and points to the 2008 Private Career Training Institutes Act Review by John Watson, which makes 16 recommendations for changes to the government body, including a single strict method of accreditation, creating a charter of students rights and freedoms, and using government appointments to the board instead of an election process among PCTIA members.

Government hasn't lived up to their obligations to implement these changes, Mungall says.

"I think that what the provincial government has the responsibility to do is to create a regulatory system for private post-secondary education where student protection is the number one bottom line, and I don't feel the Liberals did that," she told The Tyee.

PCTIA was created in 2002 by the B.C. government out of the already existing Private Post-Secondary Education Commission (PPSEC), a body within the Ministry of Advanced Education. The current Ministry argues this incarnation provides greater student financial protection.

"(PCTIA) was designed to bring British Columbia in line with other provinces by reducing government regulation of the private post secondary sector, while encouraging industry to assume greater responsibility for its actions," a ministry representative told The Tyee via email.

"Among the changes, the (PCTIA) Act established a Student Training Completion Fund to provide consumer protection for the tuition fees of students attending registered institutions. This Fund replaced the Private Post-Secondary Education Council's financial security requirements, which did not always provide an adequate level of consumer protection to students and were overly restrictive on the financial operations of institutions."

The ministry insists the government acted immediately to "implement or partially implement the majority of the recommendations" upon receiving Watson's report, but that in order to be certain of a school's validity, students should research an institution beforehand through PCTIA and the government's Education Quality Assurance website.

Student protections meet national standards: ministry

Mungall says if the NDP had been in power the Shanghai College incident wouldn't have happened, because they would have kept PPSEC.

"(PPSEC) was a body within the Ministry of Advanced Education that was created in 1992 to regulate private post-secondary. And they were doing a good job, by all accounts. They had their struggles when they were new, and going along the way, but nobody had a complaint about the work that they were doing," she says.

"I did some research into PPSEC to find out why it would have been scrapped, other than an ideological reason, and I couldn't find it."

Short of going back in time to redo any of the provincial elections of the last decade, Mungall says government can turn this situation around by accepting her private member's bill, the Private Career Training Institutions Amendment Act, introduced last fall.

It includes many of the changes Watson addresses in his report, but that government did not implement, including a charter of students' rights and responsibilities, as well as a few he did not address, such as bringing PCTIA back into the government like it was as PPSEC. The bill has already undergone one reading, and could go under a second in the next session.

Either way, Mungall says it shows the public where the NDP will go on this issue if they form the next government.

It won't come soon enough for students like Batore, who could be making up to $80 an hour as an acupuncturist, but now might have to drop out of school at Langara College where she is studying physiotherapy, because she can no longer get a student loan.

"I'm $50,000-plus in debt, and it's not fair because I don't have a chance to have a career, and it might hinder me in getting my second career," she says.

For now, the government isn't moving in a direction that will help Batore, with the ministry declining to comment on Mungall's bill and maintaining that their student protections are meeting national standards.

[Tags: Education, Labour & Industry, Politics.]  [Tyee]

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