Shauna Wagner earned an agriculture financial certificate from Olds College in Olds, Alta., without leaving her farm in southern Saskatchewan.
Wagner is one of a growing number of students who are forgoing desks, chalkboard and campus life for the virtual classroom.
Almost 5,200 students are registered for classes this year through eCampus Alberta, a partnership of 15 Alberta colleges and technical institutes that offer on-line education. Student enrolment is up 45 percent from last year and officials anticipate more than 7,000 students will take their classes over the internet next year.
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On-line education is the only way Wagner could go to school. Teenage children, a farm and a cattle background operation made it impossible for Wagner to leave the farm in Fife Lake for two years to earn a diploma.
“We live in the middle of nowhere and I can’t leave to go to university,” Wagner said.
When she saw agriculture courses offered on-line through eCampus Alberta, she jumped at the chance to start her post secondary education.
Over the next two years she took a variety of agriculture courses, which taught her about futures, federal farm law, soil, income tax and accounting.
“I really enjoyed the on-line courses,” she said.”I could do it at my own pace and on my own time. I wasn’t restricted to a classroom setting.”
Paul Rescanski, a communications officer with eCampus Alberta, said most students are women who already work and have a family, but want a post secondary education.
“They like the flexibility of the classes,” Rescanski said.
“It gives them the flexibility to do it from home.”
The province’s post secondary institutions established eCampus Alberta in 2002 after predicting the growing need for off campus education.
“They saw an opportunity to produce more education opportunities. It was a way to access programs from any of the institutions,” he said.
Rescanski said the classes are specifically designed for electronic instruction rather than being classroom programs pasted on an internet site. The 15 institutions offer more than 30 provincially accredited on-line certificate, diploma and applied degree programs and 400 courses.
Wagner said now that she’s exhausted the on-line agriculture courses offered through eCampus Alberta, she has started taking courses at the on-line Athabasca University in anticipation of getting a business or agriculture degree.
