Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the Finance Minister's address, he committed to restoring funding to Aurora College to deliver the social work and teacher education programs but made note that there will be no additional intake for these two programs, so I would like to ask the Minister of Education if he can explain how this process is going to work and what the students who were previously impacted by this change can expect now that this financial commitment has come forward from this government? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As previously noted throughout the course of the dialogue in session, we are going to continue to support the students who are currently in the program, support them through to completion for the years moving ahead. As I mentioned, as the Member mentioned and the Finance Minister, there will be no intakes for the upcoming year until these programs are reviewed and the college is reviewed, as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
What of the access program students who were planning on taking this program? Will they still be able to fulfill those goals? We will start with that.
We have two students in the access program for TEP and five who were going into the social work program. The staff at Aurora College has been working with these students to help them look for programs in other institutions, so they have all had a plan in place for their career goals as well as their academic path moving forward.
I spoke to some of these students, potentially before that happened, and they were quite upset about not being able to do this education here in the North, or at least start this education here in the North. Is there any possibility that exceptions can be made for these students to continue on the educational path that they had originally planned to do before this announcement was made?
As we have had this dialogue, Members said that nothing should be done until the strategic view has been in place as well as looking at a foundational review, so we have put everything on hold. We are not going to continue with the intakes. With the decisions that were made, we believe that it was appropriate, working with Aurora College with the reductions in the TEP program and social work program, so we are going to wait until the review is complete before we continue to make any further decisions.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that the Minister thought that this was a good idea, but, clearly, there has been a reversal decision there, which I appreciate. Perhaps the Minister can just remind this House and the public: when will the strategic plan be available for review, and can we get a concrete timeline, please, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Moving forward with Aurora College, we did send a letter off to standing committee, and we will be giving standing committee more of an update early next week.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
