In September, Toronto-based coding bootcamp HackerYou announced that it was putting its bootcamp program on hold as it sought Private Career College accreditation in Ontario.
Last week, HackerYou officially became one of the first coding bootcamp approved by the Ministry of Advanced Education & Skills Development to operate as a registered Private Career College. HackerYou will now operate as HackerYou College of Technology and its Front-End Web Development Immersive Program will become a certificate program.
HackerYou founder Heather Payne suggested that this is a turning point for coding bootcamps.
“Education — especially tech education — needs to be adaptable; it needs to meet industry demands. HackerYou was created with this in mind, but until now, we’ve only existed outside of the highly regulated formalized education system that includes colleges and universities,” said Payne. “Becoming registered as a Private Career College according to the Private Career Colleges Act, 2005, was a daunting task that, as a startup, posed a major challenge to us.”
Payne said that she’s optimistic about further opportunities to work with the government to innovate its processes, and that the process to be registered as a PCC only took three months.
“We received a letter from Minister Deb Matthews at the Ministry of Advanced Education & Skills Development,” said Payne. In it, she wrote that the Ontario government “recognize[s] the important work [HackerYou is] doing, equipping people with skills that are in high demand, and helping us to prepare people for the technology-and-knowledge-based economy of the future.”