Save Craft Education in Ontario, One Year Later: George Brown's Jewellery Program is Now Fully Suspended

In April 2025, Craft Ontario published Save Craft Education in Ontario: A Call to Action, warning that flagship craft programs at George Brown College, Sheridan College, and OCAD University were facing suspension, restructuring, or worse. At the time, three of George Brown's four Jewellery & Gemmology programs had already stopped taking new students for Fall 2025.

This fall, the fourth program followed. George Brown Polytechnic, as the institution is now known, has confirmed there will be no new student intake into any of its Jewellery programs, Jewellery Essentials included, for 2027-28. More than 140 students across the three programs still teaching out will finish their credentials by April 2027. After this cycle, no new student can start.

For more than 55 years, this program has trained goldsmiths, gemmologists, stone setters, and designers. It's the largest jewellery education provider in North America, built around 150 jewellery benches and 30 gemmological testing stations that took decades to assemble. Once specialized faculty and equipment like this disperse, rebuilding them is slow, expensive, and sometimes impossible.

The concern we raised last year hasn't gone away.

Our original call to action named three institutions under pressure: George Brown, Sheridan, and OCAD. George Brown's Jewellery programs show that pressure playing out to its full conclusion. Sheridan's Craft and Design program suspended intake for Fall 2025, as we reported then, and has since resumed it for Fall 2026, but the program has absorbed real losses to get there, in faculty capacity, course offerings, and disciplinary depth. OCAD's Material Art & Design program continues to face the same underlying pressures, chronic underfunding, the tuition freeze, and the drop in international enrolment following federal study permit changes, that shaped all three programs a year ago. None of this is over. It's the story we told a year ago, still playing out differently at each institution.

The province recently announced 1,454 new funded seats at George Brown. Jewellery isn't among them.

What we're asking for

Craft Ontario is calling on George Brown Polytechnic, and the province, to:

• Retain the faculty expertise and specialized equipment built up over 55 years, wherever this program lands next
• Provide a genuine, credentialed pathway for students to continue this training in Ontario
• Recognize jewellery and metalsmithing as the skilled trades they are, in policy and in funding

What you can do

• Sign the petition. It was started by alumni and industry supporters of the programs and calls on George Brown to reinstate intake outright. Our own ask, above, is a bit different, but every signature adds to the public record of concern.
• Write to your MPP and ask them to raise this with the Minister of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security. The letter template from our original campaign is still a good starting point.
• Use your voice online: Share stories, write op-eds, use #SaveCraftEdON

A year ago, we said craft education doesn't just teach skills, it builds industries, communities, and culture. That's still true, and the pressure on all three programs we named then hasn't let up. We'll keep you updated as this develops.