School’s out for more than 50 Calgary students and their teachers this summer after a private vocational school pulled the plug on operations amid financial difficulties.
The Applied Multimedia Training Centre (AMTC) has been operating for the past seven years, offering software-related instruction in programs including QuarkXPress, PhotoShop, and raw HTML coding. Three years ago, the school was acquired by New Brunswick-based Mosaic Technologies Corporation.
“The Calgary school was profitable ever since Mosaic took over. It was only last year that they started mentioning that they were having financial difficulties,” said instructor Don Nich.
But last week, students at the school, located at Centre 70 at 7015 Macleod Trail S., were greeted by locked doors and a voicemail message informing them that the centre was closed until further notice. Many of the students enrolled in the $15,000 multimedia day courses expected to graduate this fall. About eight instructors, plus technical and administrative staff, are also affected by the closure.
Mosaic Technologies owner Rick Buckingham did not return calls from Business Edge. Trading in the education company’s shares was halted last week on the TSX Venture Exchange, pending clarification of company affairs. Pitman Business College in Vancouver, a division of Mosaic, was shut down by B.C. government bailiffs last month, while Nich said other AMTC campuses in Regina and Winnipeg are also shut down.
“Mosaic has not been forthcoming with a lot of details,” Nich said. “It’s terribly frustrating.”
Alberta Learning spokesman Mark Cooper said the government has given Mosaic until Aug. 8 to develop a plan for students, or else the province will move in to establish one.
“If there’s not an acceptable plan in place, it would involve us working to try to find the students placement in other institutions, if there is another institution that may be willing or able to complete their training,” he said.
The Students Finance Board has been notified of the situation, he said, and will maintain students’ loan status until the situation is resolved.
“My understanding is that they (Mosaic) are working to find a solution, but I guess the proof will be on Aug. 8 or hopefully before that,” Cooper added.
An Edmonton private vocational school faced a similar situation last year. Plagued by low enrolment and insolvency, Strathcona Career Training Institute suspended operations last July, leaving 55 students in limbo. It was later acquired by the Toronto-based Academy of Learning.
But a member of the AMTC’s advisory board said he has a gut feeling that the Calgary school won’t reopen any time soon.
Mark Ruthenberg, general manager of FoundLocally.com and president of the Calgary chapter of Alberta New Media, an industry association for the promotion and advancement of new media professionals in Alberta, said Mosaic hadn’t been reinvesting in new hardware, or even advertising or marketing new class intakes, making any potential sale of the Calgary operations an unattractive proposition.
“From what I’m aware of their capital structure, I don’t think there’s any likelihood of a sale happening,” he said.
“And having seen what’s happened with receiverships of high-technology ventures, if a receiver is appointed you can pretty well kiss it goodbye because it takes so much time – and in the technology industry, time is not in anybody’s interest, unless you’re buying it for just the assets.”
He added that while the instructors have more than enough talent and experience to start their own school, finding capital is a problem. “If they can identify a source of capital, I think they can pull it off,” he said.
“I think a staff-based solution, in my view, would be most successful. They’ve done a very good job of filling a niche and managing to stay in business despite the downturn in the new media sector over the last couple of years. And they were well poised for the eventual recovery of the sector.”
Nich, an art director and graphic artist for the past 20 years who has taught at the Calgary school since it opened its doors seven years ago, said he will continue marking his students’ projects this summer.
“I’m an eternal optimist,” he said. “Bottom line, we feel the program itself has so much value to it. Because it’s been supported by the community and the students, we’re optimistic that at some point, somebody will recognize that value.”
