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College officials concerned about upgrading money
Theresa Seraphim
for Spotlight
Northern Lakes College officials worry that decreased funding for students in upgrading programs will have a negative impact.
“A lot of our low-income students are grant funded for support while they attend college to take upgrading,” explains NLC president Rick Neidig.
Neidig says there are two pockets of funding – Work Foundations and Training for Work. The former is for upgrading while the latter is for certificate and diploma programs.
“Employment and Immigration wanted to put more emphasis on the Training for Work side,” resulting in a decrease in Work Foundations money, says Neidig.
He said the situation doesn’t reflect the demand for upgrading in this geographical area.
“In February of this year, 60 students were ready and able but couldn’t get grant funding because that (Work Foundations) pocket was used up.”
Neidig says besides that, another disadvantage to the reduced funding is that diploma/certificate programs are affected because students who can’t upgrade can’t take those programs. About one-third of certificate program students have come the upgrading route, he notes.
“”We’re concerned about the impact of those policies on our overall enrollment.”
Upgrading is becoming more and more important, says Neidig.
“Grade 12 is often the minimum level of education needed to obtain any meaningful employment…It’s very difficult to break out of that cycle of dependence.”
Neidig hopes the Ministry of Advanced Education, under which the college falls, and the Ministry of Employment and Immigration, which funds the students, will get on the same page.
“They have different philosophies, so we’re caught in the middle,” he says, adding money can’t be taken from the Training for Work pocket.
“We’re kind of at the point of saying, ‘Let’s get to the root of the problem,’” says Neidig, adding the situation, for some reason, seems to be more prevalent in this part of the province, with Kindergarten to Grade 12 dropout rates being the high and completion rates low compared to the rest of Alberta.
He says although the college has been told it’s a budget issue, it’s actually a policy issue.
“When policies are created, they tend to look at everybody from the same lens,” and that doesn’t always work, Neidig adds.
Neidig says NLC officials discussed the situation with Advanced Education Minister Doug Horner and Employment and Immigration Minister Thomas Lukaszuk when they visited Slave Lake May 18 as part of the provincial cabinet tour.
“We were trying to have them meet with our upgrading students and hear from them,” says Neidig.
“The ministers listened very carefully and enjoyed their talks with the students. Hopefully they’ll come up with a better long-term solution.”
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