Georgian College, an Ontario community college that receives government funding, recently announced a three-year program that would culminate in a degree in homeopathy. (I assume you’d sit in one class for one second and that would magically permeate through the rest of your courses enough to earn you the diploma.)

What would those courses even look like?

In a statement to the Post, Georgian College officials said its new diploma program, due to launch at its Barrie campus in the fall, “will provide students with the theoretical, practical and clinical skills necessary to graduate with the competencies required to successfully meet the entry to practice requirements of the regulator body,” the College of Homeopaths of Ontario.

Considering homeopathy doesn’t work, has no science behind it, and wouldn’t help patients in any clinical setting beyond whatever you’d expect from a placebo, this was an incredible admission from the school. Imagine if a public university offered classes in Creationism so that you’d be ready to study a Ken Ham textbook. It’s useless education to prepare you for a useless career.

Even more, what does it say about the rest of this school that the board of governors approved this program? The homeopathy program taints the entire school. (So… it’s just like homeopathy, but with some potency.)

The irony is that the program’s prerequisites include high school biology, chemistry or physics, and math. If you passed any of those classes, then you should know what a scam homeopathy is.

The backlash must have finally reached a tipping point, though, because the school nixed the program one day after media outlets reported on it.

The college’s board of governors released a statement Friday afternoon explaining its decision. “In light of the recent response from our local community and beyond and in consideration of our students, Georgian College has made the decision to cancel the homeopathy program.”

They deserve some credit for canceling the program, but it’s still appalling that they approved it at all. How low must their standards be that pseudoscience was deemed a worthwhile thing to study? Why do these administrators want to waste students’ time with “science” classes that have no backing from the scientific community? How much tuition money were they hoping to make from gullible students who wouldn’t realize they weren’t being taught anything helpful?

It’s not enough for the school to cancel the classes. They owe everybody an apology. And they need to take steps to assure the public this will never happen again.

(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to Brian for the link)

