By Bryan Eneas

Northlands College working out kinks in NORTEP transition

Apr 19, 2017 | 12:00 PM

Students of the Northern Teachers Education Program have voiced their concerns about the transition of their program to Northlands College.

On March 15, the Ministry of Advanced Education announced the NORTEP program would be taken over by Northlands College, after announcing a funding cut to the program last summer.

Toby Greschner, President and Chief Executive Officer of Northlands, said the college is working out the kinks in the transition process.

“Because there’s a little bit of turmoil going on and uncertainty, we thought it best to have everything lined up before talking to students,” he said. “We want students to be successful, we don’t want them to be impacted by administrable changes.”

One of the biggest concerns raised by the students of NORTEP is tuition costs.

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He said Northlands currently charges the same amount for tuition as a student attending programming through the Universities of Regina or Saskatoon would pay.

Greschner explained NORTEP’s ability to utilize funding from their apartment buildings and “other revenue streams” made it possible for the program to maintain the student supports it currently offers.

He said the NORTEP council “made it clear” their intentions to transfer the residences to the Gabriel Dumont Institute. If the program transferred en masse, Northlands would be able to maintain the NORTEP program almost in its entirety.

“We don’t have the ability right now to guarantee that the students who are in the program will continue to get all the funding that they were getting in the past,” Greschner said. “We are working very hard to be able to do that — we would love to be able to do that, but there are just some things that are out of our control… that are impacting on us being able to make that commitment.”

He said more clarity on the funding capabilities and tuition costs will be coming in the near future.

Students also said the NORTEP program may suffer because of changes to include video conferencing and online lectures, which Greschner said will benefit the program.

“We’ve made mention of that — We’re ready this coming fall, the ability is there for people to take their first year of an education degree at Buffalo Narrows through distance delivery,” he said.

Greschner said he hopes to expand the distance delivery program through the Northlands College institutions in the north.

Students who are currently enrolled in the NORTEP program said they are worried about a lack of guaranteed spots in the new program.

“They simply need to talk to any of our advisors here at Northlands College,” he said. “They will get in to the program, absolutely, there’s no worry about a restriction of space.”

The NORTEP program will no longer be operating as an autonomous program as of July 31, 2017.

Bryan.Eneas@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @BryanEneas