Madera Community College is one of several colleges in the state to institute a Competency-Based Education (CBE) program. Photo via MCC Facebook

Madera Community College (MCC) has kicked off its new Competency-Based Education (CBE) program within the business department. 

The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office chose MCC, along with seven other colleges, to execute a new program that will allow students to use their work and life experiences in the classroom. 

“This is going to help a lot of our non-traditional students who have industry background experience,” said Ganesan Srinivasan, dean of instruction at MCC.

The CBE program will be structured with “competencies” — any type of material that will test a student on their knowledge. For example, if a student has worked in management for a couple of years, the student can complete a competency, which will allow them to fulfill a learning outcome from a management course in less time.

“They may be able to complete a course in two or three weeks compared to 18 weeks,” said Juan Alvarez, faculty lead of the CBE program. Besides testing the students’ knowledge, the competencies will allow some students to finish courses faster.

The competencies will be established with MCC’s curriculum committee and the other seven colleges in order to meet student learning outcomes. 

The Business Administration degree is the first one to implement the CBE program at MCC. The new program will be completely online, Srinivasan said. 

This initiative is expected to take place over four years. It will have key milestones to meet such as establishing local infrastructure for innovation, designing the program and obtaining accreditation and program approval.

MCC will have open communication with Fresno State and Fresno Pacific University to assure that the CBE program is aligned with the higher education colleges’ curriculums on Business Administration, Alvarez said. 

Alvarez hopes to have CBE ready by March 2022, with program approval anticipated by September 2022. 

The project’s team will be working with faculty, financial aid, student recruitment, curriculum accreditation and more to complete the program. 

“This is a totally new concept for education and definitely for community colleges in California. We are extremely excited about it,” Srinivasan said.

According to a press release by MCC, “$515,000 will be available for implementation” of the program. 

“The ultimate goal of this effort is to provide access to degree programs that lead to wage gains and are offered in a flexible, adaptive and innovative modality for students deemed to be ‘nontraditional learners’– adult learners and students with some college, no degree,” said the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office in the press release.