Title: Case study on fighting recession

Authors: Prof. Hira N. Ahuja

Addresses: Director Continuing Education Division, Technical University of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Abstract: Reduced development activity both in the Atlantic Region and central Canada, coupled with reduction in the long-term in-house training contracts during the 1990-1991 recession, posed a serious economic viability problem for the Continuing Education Division (CED) at the Technical University of Nova Scotia (TUNS). This problem also presented to CED an opportunity for taking a hard look, trimming all fat, becoming |lean and mean|, surviving and maintaining its lead in Canada so that it would be able to build on its strengths and resume its growth when the economic climate improved. This paper analyses CED|s operations, examines options, discusses CED|s struggle for existence, and describes actions taken to emerge as a strong provider of continuing engineering education. The objective of this paper is to present a real-life account of the exasperation of a continuing education division struggling to survive within a university during recession. It is not a |cook book| approach that one can read in management books.

Keywords: Canada; recessionary measures; cost reduction; continuing education restructuring; quality improvement; recession; in-house training; economic viability; continuing engineering education; Continuing Education Division; Technical University of Nova Scotia.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCEELL.1993.030269

International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning, 1993 Vol.3 No.1/2, pp.26 - 35

Published online: 14 Dec 2009 *

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