{"id":2166,"date":"2012-02-07T15:28:32","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T23:28:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=2166"},"modified":"2012-02-16T11:36:27","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T19:36:27","slug":"college-says-co-op-guidelines-out-of-whack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2012\/02\/07\/college-says-co-op-guidelines-out-of-whack\/","title":{"rendered":"College says co-op guidelines ‘out of whack’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A crackdown on government policy by Camosun College financial aid will affect students looking for unpaid internship or co-op positions this spring and summer.<\/p>\n

Students must now commit to 12 weeks of unpaid co-op work in order to be considered for financial assistance, a government requirement that has students and staff concerned.<\/p>\n

Because the spring and summer semesters are 14 weeks long, government policy states that work terms must be a minimum of 12 weeks in order to qualify for funding. This presents a problem for co-op students in some of Camosun\u2019s programs who may want to pursue either a mandatory or optional work term outside of those time frames.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Camosun's Gloria Darroch (photo by TJ Nyce\/Nexus).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t control this the way we control most courses at the college. It\u2019s the employers that have control over the positions,\u201d says Gloria Darroch, director of co-op education. \u201cWe\u2019ve tried to make it as flexible as possible for students to get a work term and not be bound by the normal add\/drop dates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the government policy isn\u2019t as flexible. Upon discovering that some students were completing the 250 work-term hours in less than the 12-week minimum, Camosun financial aid was forced to move to a stricter set of requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past we weren\u2019t aware that the start and end dates weren\u2019t accurate,\u201d says Lynda Funston, financial aid and awards coordinator. \u201cIf you are knowingly applying for four months of student assistance, but you know you are not going to be engaged in [your work term] for four months, then you\u2019re basically committing fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the specific timelines often make it difficult for students to find fulfilling internship opportunities that fit this mold.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to force an employer to follow the same rigidity as you would with an academic course,\u201d says Lois Fernyhough, co-op instructor for the applied communications program (ACP). \u201cThis kind of a ruling is going to be denying students a number of valuable experiential learning opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second-year ACP student Colleen Rabatich says she wouldn\u2019t have been able to accept a valuable opportunity to intern at CBC Radio this summer without assistance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have been able to do this internship if I didn\u2019t have financial aid,\u201d says Rabatich. \u201cI would have been doing something that wouldn\u2019t have given me as much experience and wouldn\u2019t have helped my future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given these challenges faced by co-op students, Darroch thinks it\u2019s time for policies to change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government is way far behind in recognizing that students don\u2019t just work and go to school anymore,\u201d says Darroch. \u201cIt seems to me that the rules around financial aid from the government are out of whack with reality.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A crackdown on government policy by Camosun College financial aid will affect students looking for unpaid internship or co-op positions this spring and summer. Students must now commit to 12 weeks of unpaid co-op work in order to be considered for financial assistance, a government requirement that has students and staff concerned. Because the spring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-february-8-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2166"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2353,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166\/revisions\/2353"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}