By Kathy Corrigan
New Democrat spokesperson on advanced education
Since 2012, adults in British Columbia have been able to go to colleges or universities to take English courses that prepared them for the workforce or further post-secondary education.
Providing these courses free of charge was a good investment in our economy and an investment in immigrants who otherwise had many skills to offer, but needed only a boost to their language skills.
In an announcement last week, the B.C. Liberals made clear that they will not support ELL programs facing closure from federal funding cuts. Instead, they said that institutions could start charging for these programs, which were previously available free of charge.
Though Premier Christy Clark and her ministers have said repeatedly that they want to make sure B.C. students and workers “have the skills to be first in line for jobs,” it’s hard to take them at their word. Their announcement shows that they are willing to leave English language learners at the back of the line.
When they announced in 2012 that these programs would be available for free, the previous advanced education minister claimed her government would “make sure all British Columbians have the adult education opportunities they need to find jobs, raise families, participate in their communities and fulfil their dreams.”
But at last week’s announcement, Advanced Education Minister Amrik Virk was nowhere to be found to explain why this is no longer a priority for his government. And he has been hiding from media ever since.
Minister Virk, who is the latest of nine ministers in eleven years on this file, has failed to keep his government’s promises, and failed to take action to prevent the looming crisis facing English language learners.
As funding for these programs ran out, and they prepared to shut down, the minister continued to claim that students would find other language learning services – ignoring the fact that the programs being cut offered advanced, unique opportunities, and ignoring the protests of hundreds of students who took their message to the legislature, telling the minister again and again that these programs matter.
Only at the very last minute, with just over a week to go before Vancouver Community College plans to lay off 70 staff, the minister made his announcement that students would be charged fees. The fees will not come close to covering the costs of offering the programs, will result in drastic enrolment decline and will inevitably mean closure of many of these critical and worthwhile programs that have provided ladders of opportunity for immigrants to British Columbia.
The minister’s handling of this issue has been ineffectual, and his missteps have left thousands of English language learners, and hundreds of instructors and staff, unsure of what the future holds.
A year ago, when he was responding to concerns over the federal cuts, Minister Virk didn’t even seem to know that his government supported those same cuts. While he said he was disappointed, the federal minister, Chris Alexander, said that the plan had the support of Premier Christy Clark and Liberal minister Shirley Bond.
With the announcement last week, Minister Virk continues to add to his poor record on this file.
A record that also includes a steady decline of funding in his ministry, as well as the minister’s continued failure to explain his involvement in a scheme to break provincial compensation rules while he was on the board at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
After a year and a half of broken promises to students, it is hard to take Minister Virk at this word.
