Accessible Media Production Ontario College Graduate Certificate Suspension

Mohawk College continues to be committed to Accessible Media Production and to trying to meet the needs of the community.

The delivery of the program as a graduate certificate has not proven to be viable.

We will continue to deliver this content. However, the college has decided to deliver this curriculum in a different format, including through micro-credentials.  We will offer micro-credentials that sequentially build upon students’ previous learning to ensure that training is complete through module-based learning. This will give more people access to the curriculum, with more flexibility in their learning, for those who want to pursue this important training.

We want to make this important training available to more people. Since 2017, there have been 41 graduates from the Accessible Media Program, including 11 through Continuing Education. This has not met enrolment targets and has not met the demand for trained workers for employers. For these reasons, we have suspended the program in its current format and will work with specialists and the program advisory committee to develop a program model that will attract more people to train in this area.

The review process for this program is similar to other programs.   We often review how we are delivering programs and try to ensure that they are accessible to more learners.  Especially when we have a low number of enrolments and graduates.

We have committed to exploring a new way to deploy the learning for Accessible Media Production and we continue to be interested in research partnerships, government funding and corporate training needs to see what we can do to move forward in a sustainable way.

It is a difficult decision, and we take it very seriously. But this specific decision, in no way, minimizes our commitment to this area of accessibility specifically, or the overall commitment Mohawk is making to diversity, equity and inclusion priorities.

Previous Updates

June 13, 2022: Work Integrated Learning

Work integrated learning is a key element of training at Mohawk College and we have plans to incorporate this learning into our suite of micro credentials, depending on the needs of our learners. Currently, we will be offering two areas of specialization in the accessibility for media context, to start: Accessible Documents, and Accessible Information and Communication Technologies. Learning from our launch and the levels of student and industry interest, the college will then offer more micro-credentials addressing emergent technical requirements, as well as work integrated elements in this important and evolving field, in the future.

June 6, 2022: Suspension of the Accessible Media Production graduate certificate

Last week, the difficult decision was made by Mohawk College to suspend future program intakes effective Fall 2022 for the Accessible Media Production Ontario College Graduate Certificate.

Mohawk College has been and remains committed to training people in Accessible Media Production. The college has supported the graduate certificate program for several years to allow it to become established and grow. Unfortunately, enrolment targets have not been met during that time, which has made the program in its current format, as a full-time graduate certificate, financially unsustainable.

We continue to believe strongly in the concept of this program and the need for trained graduates to do this important work. As a result, we will continue to support alternative models for delivery in an effort to find the best way to attract interested students into this field. To that end, we will support the delivery of two new micro-credentials in Accessible Media Production through Continuing Education and will continue to support similar foundational training through Mohawk College Enterprise. We also intend to support the ongoing applied research underway and commit to exploring new funding sources and research opportunities to find alternative ways to get the training into the hands of those who desire it.

We understand that this decision will be disappointing to everyone who has given their time and energy to support accessibility media production in college education and in the greater community. Please know that we remain committed to finding a viable way for that to happen.

We will continue to work with our Program Advisory Committee and Mohawk College’s specialists to help reassess and plan our path forward.