Collège Boréal is still the best, say graduates!

8 December 2021

Again this year, Collège Boréal’s focus on student satisfaction has undeniably proved to be one of its strengths.

The results of government-mandated Key Performance Indicator surveys released this morning by Colleges Ontario rank Collège Boréal at the head of the pack for graduate satisfaction with a rate of 88.3%, ten points above the provincial average. This result is not surprising when one also considers the percentage of graduates who would recommend their program to others (93%) or recommend Collège Boréal as a post-secondary institution (95%).

Employers are surely the first to benefit from Collège Boréal’s impressive graduate satisfaction rate. Year after year, they can hire Boréal’s graduates knowing that they have the skills needed to perform well in the work environment. And again this year, employers expressed their satisfaction by giving Boréal a perfect 100% score.

Key Performance Indicators

Since 1998, the Government of Ontario requires that Ontario colleges annually collect and submit a number of data points relative to their performance. For the 2020-2021 academic year, the performance of Ontario colleges was evaluated in four areas: graduate satisfaction, employer satisfaction, employment rate and graduation rate.

Collège Boréal has achieved outstanding evaluation results for more than 20 years and despite the challenges brought by the pandemic, the 2020-2021 KPI results extend the trend.

Collège Boréal ranks 2^nd for graduation rate with 73.1%, just 0.6% behind the leading college’s score of 73.7%.
For the 16^th time in 22 years, Collège Boréal ranks 1^st for graduate satisfaction rate, with a score of 88.3%.
For the second consecutive year, Collège Boréal’s employer satisfaction rate ranks 1^st among all colleges, at 100%.
In 2020-2021, Collège Boréal’s graduate employment rate of 84.6% is higher than the provincial average.

A personalized approach that delivers results

Those who know Collège Boréal know that the college and its management team take student satisfaction to heart. One example of this is the president’s annual visit to each of the seven campuses to meet in person with first-year students. “That’s truly the best part of my year,” says Daniel Giroux, the college’s president for over 5 years. He believes that this personalized approach allows him to stay in direct contact with the college’s spirit and purpose, which is to ensure student satisfaction. While the president tours all campuses annually to meet all first-year students, the leadership team’s members do likewise to meet all second- and third-year students. This practice allows all leadership team members to better understand and acknowledge the student experience. Daniel Giroux is proud to confirm that frequent adjustments and improvements are made in response to feedback obtained from students.

Satisfied students

Student satisfaction is so important for Collège Boréal that the college has decided, along with three other institutions, to continue to survey the student population on this indicator despite the government’s decision to eliminate it from the Key Performance Indicators. The 2020-2021 results speak for themselves: 83.8% of Boréal students express satisfaction with the college, an increase of 1.4% compared to 2019-2020. When asked whether their program provides them with the knowledge and skills they will need in their future career, 92.1% respond in the affirmative. For President Giroux, these results are at the very core of the college’s purpose: “I have always believed that student satisfaction should be at the centre of all of our decisions and all of our actions. In my view, the best way to ensure the success of a post-secondary institution is to always work for the students, to always keep them in mind. For me, these survey results are proof of Collège Boréal’s success.”

Key facts:

Graduate satisfaction rate

88,3% in 2020-2021.
Top rank in Ontario for the 16^th time in 22 years.
Our rate is 10.3% higher than the provincial average (78.0%) of Ontario’s 24 colleges.

Employer satisfaction rate

100% in 2020-2021.
Top rank with 7 other colleges who have also achieved a rate of 100%.
Our rate is 9.4% higher than the provincial average (90.6%) of Ontario’s 24 colleges.

Graduation rate

73,1% in 2020-2021.
Ranked 2^nd in the province
Our rate is 7.2% higher than the provincial average (65.9%) of Ontario’s 24 colleges.

Employment rate

84,6% in 2020-2021.
Ranked 6^th in Ontario, compared to 8^th in 2019-2020.
Our rate is 7.6% higher than the provincial average (77.0%) of Ontario’s 24 colleges.

Working at Collège Boréal means first and foremost working for students, the next generation of workers. I am proud of our Key Performance Indicator results because they prove without a doubt that Collège Boréal is one of Ontario’s best colleges. In fact, we are the only college in the entire history of the KPIs to have so often achieved the top rank for two or more indicators in a single year, which we’ve done 19 times in 22 years. The pandemic has forced us to perform even better and I thank the entire Boréal family for having rolled up their sleeves and given the best of who we are to college education in Ontario.

Daniel Giroux

President of Collège Boréal