Langara is spending $13.5 million next fiscal year on Workday Student, an administrative information system that has drawn criticism from students at the only other B.C. school that uses the system.

Workday Student will replace Banner, which the college has used since 1996. Banner’s developer released its latest version in 2017, but Langara has been using an outdated version that lost support in 2025.

UBC is the only other post-secondary B.C. institution using Workday Student, which it launched in 2024. Students at UBC say the transition has been rough.

David Savage, a fourth-year cognitive systems student at UBC, said his graduation was delayed after transfer credits from a previous degree failed to appear in the system. His academic adviser was unsure about how to fix the issue.

“It’s not going to ruin your life, but it’s constantly annoying,” Savage said.

He said the previous system used at UBC was easier to navigate, while Workday requires multiple clicks to find documents like a transcript without clear instructions on the same page.

UBC has over 70,000 students, while Langara has approximately 19,000 students.

Shunsuke Ogawa, a fourth-year English student at UBC, said the platform doesn’t show schedule conflicts when students register for courses, forcing them to track their timetables manually.

“You have to open five tabs to make sure that you can register for a course without it conflicting with other courses,” Ogawa said. He said a fellow student even built a Chrome extension to facilitate course registration.

Ogawa said his advice for Langara students is to be prepared.

“Triple check everything before you close the site,” he said.

Click here for the full story: