{"id":8664,"date":"2014-03-05T08:50:52","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T16:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=8664"},"modified":"2017-08-08T12:03:50","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T19:03:50","slug":"camosun-college-gets-transitional-funding-for-esl-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2014\/03\/05\/camosun-college-gets-transitional-funding-for-esl-training\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun College gets transitional funding for ESL training"},"content":{"rendered":"

Camosun College will be receiving $1.43 million in one-time transition funding for ESL training, the provincial government announced on Wednesday, February 19. The funding, part of a transition plan the Ministry of Advanced Education has developed with the federal government and public postsecondary institutions, comes after the news of funding cuts for domestic ESL students (see nexusnewspaper.com for last issue\u2019s story about the ESL cuts). The money, which is part of funding going to 17 postsecondary institutions across BC, will fund the college\u2019s ESL training through the next year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Camosun College Student Society recently held a protest about the recent ESL cuts (photo by Isabela Sasaki\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThat is very important for us strategically, and is very very important for us in terms of determining the future of ESL,\u201d says Camosun vice-president of communications Joan Yates. \u201cSo we feel that the provincial government has come through in terms of transition money that is very much needed and appreciated right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yates says that the college is currently \u201cputting in place a number of scenarios\u201d in regards to what will happen after this one-time funding money runs out; until then, she says that this transition funding is a positive thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good news, it\u2019s positive news, it allows for the appropriate planning, it allows for some level of proactivity as opposed to being reactive to it, and gives us some time to see what options are available,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

CCSS external executive Simka Marshall says that while it\u2019s good to get some funding to help the current students finish off this year of their ESL training, she stresses that it is still just one-time funding and might be taking away from the larger issues at hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this transitional funding, it\u2019s good, but it\u2019s created a lot of distraction and the attack on ESL and postsecondary education is still happening,\u201d says Marshall. \u201cThere\u2019s still an issue here: we still have to fight for the reversal of this cut.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CCSS recently held two events to help students better understand and voice their concerns about the recent cuts to Camosun\u2019s ESL program.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, February 20, they held a \u201ctown hall\u201d meeting at the Interurban campus. Over 100 people, including students, community members, and Camosun faculty, attended the standing-room-only event, according to Marshall.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a lot more successful than we anticipated,\u201d says Marshall, who explains the event was a forum for the students to share their stories and ask any questions they had.<\/p>\n

The CCSS invited local MLAs Lana Popham and Rob Fleming and advanced education opposition critic and New Democrat MLA David Eby to the event, all of whom showed up. They also invited minister of advanced education Amrik Virk and Premier Christy Clark; Clark sent her regrets to the CCSS, explaining she couldn\u2019t attend because she was travelling that day. Virk did not reply to the invitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a nice gesture to see that we actually got a response,\u201d says Marshall. \u201cThe minister never responded, so that was disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n

(A spokesperson for the minister of advanced education told Nexus<\/i> that they can find no record of this invitation being sent.)<\/p>\n

So many students wanted to talk at the meeting that the event had to stop before everyone had a chance to say what they wanted to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of talk about wanting to follow the Canadian dream and getting here and finding out this program is discontinued, and how heartbreaking it is,\u201d says Marshall. \u201cSo it was really emotional, and a lot of anger as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students spoke for 40 minutes and the politicians had five minutes to respond to the students\u2019 concerns. They all said they\u2019d take their stories back to the Legislature. \u201cIt was incredibly successful,\u201d says Marshall. \u201cIt was a very powerful event.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Local MLA Rob Fleming speaks at a recent “town hall” style meeting about the ESL cuts (photo by Roz Sulyma\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next day, Friday, February 21, the CCSS held a rally outside the Ministry of Advanced Education office at 835 Humboldt Street. Around 150 people showed up, including a lot of the same ESL students from Thursday, but this time they brought their families, says Marshall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a really powerful message, to show how this program really affects these students\u2019 lives, and they depend on it to enter the workforce and get a job so they can support their families,\u201d she says. \u201cAlso, a lot of people are really worried about what the future is going to be of ESL, and that\u2019s something that was expressed, like, \u2018What\u2019s going to happen to my children when they\u2019re growing up and need this training?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As well, some Camosun students and CCSS members held a sit-in in the lobby of the Ministry of Advanced Education office at 8:30 that morning to draw more attention to the situation. \u201cThey just wanted to take some direct action to show how serious this is,\u201d says Marshall, who adds that the CCSS will be organizing more events like this in the months ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Camosun College will be receiving $1.43 million in one-time transition funding for ESL training, the provincial government announced on Wednesday, February 19. The funding, part of a transition plan the Ministry of Advanced Education has developed with the federal government and public postsecondary institutions, comes after the news of funding cuts for domestic ESL students […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8665,"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":[13,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-march-5-2014"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8664","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8664"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14437,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8664\/revisions\/14437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}