Mount Royal University is partnering with the University of Waterloo in Ontario to explore the creation of an optometry school in Calgary, the first of its kind in Alberta and the third of its kind in Canada if established.
According to a news release on Thursday morning, the University of Waterloo houses the only English-language accredited optometry school in Canada. The only other accredited optometry school is at the Université de Montréal which is entirely in French.
With limited seats – the programs only admit a few dozen students each year – many people have no choice but to go abroad for optometry training.
MRU Provost Chad London said the two schools signed a memorandum of understanding to increase the demand for vision care in Canada, especially with an aging population. MRU and the University of Waterloo will explore the possibility of a collaborative program to bring more optometrists into the healthcare system in Calgary and the province.
“When we speak with our colleagues at the Alberta College of Optometrists and the Alberta Association of Optometrists, they speak about there being a growing need for skilled optometrists in our community, especially in rural Alberta and serving diverse communities across the province,” London told LiveWire Calgary.
“This partnership will be exploring further how we meet the demand for optometrists, what infrastructure we need, how we collaborate on curriculum with the University of Waterloo and with ourselves to deliver programs.”
London added that a school in Calgary will help with retention rates.
“We see a lot of a lot of Albertans and Canadians that can get into one of the existing Canadian schools are heading internationally to get educated as optometrists, and so this will help keep more Canadians at home to complete their education here and more Albertans here in the province to be able to complete their education as optometrists,” he said.
“We know that often where you get educated is often where you stay and practice. So, it provides a particular benefit to Albertans.”
There isn’t a timeline for when the optometry school will be established and how many students will be admitted into the program. London said those considerations will be set in stone as the partnership progresses.
“What this partnership signals is for us to now move ahead and do our due diligence to figure out things like what is it going to take to build an accredited curriculum program. What is it going to take to develop the infrastructure? What is it going to take to put in and gather up the financial and human resources to be able to pull this off? And so it’s going to take some time to figure those things out,” he said.
According to the Alberta Occupational Outlook for 2021 to 2030, there will be a stable number of job openings for optometrists through 2030, with roughly 47 openings, it predicts. It estimates there will be 75 job seekers for those positions.
