Olds College will receive $689,300 in additional funding from the provincial government as a result of a $50 million commitment the government made to post-secondary schools last week. The funding amounts to a 2.
Olds College will receive $689,300 in additional funding from the provincial government as a result of a $50 million commitment the government made to post-secondary schools last week.
The funding amounts to a 2.62 per cent increase to the yearly allocation the college received from the government in the spring. But the new funding still falls short of the cuts to the college’s provincial funding announced earlier this year from the previous year’s provincial budget allocation.
The provincial government cut the college’s funding by 7.3 per cent in March and the school had actually expected a two per cent increase in funding from the province.
As a result of the cuts, the college was forced to eliminate its office administration program, which was transferred to Red Deer College, and reduce 25 full-time equivalent staff positions.
"We’re obviously very pleased about (the funding announcement). It’s a mid-year operating budget infusion that we’ll be able to put to very good use," said Jordan Cleland, vice-president of advancement at the college. "As far as we knew the reductions in the spring were for the whole year and so any kind of major correction that partially restores (funding) is more than welcome."
College officials have yet to determine which programs will see an extra infusion of money, but Cleland speculated that the college’s most in-demand programs such as fashion, tourism and hospitality management as well as academic programming focusing on water treatment and sports management could be candidates for the extra money. The money would go toward providing additional student spaces in those programs.
"The government is clear that they’re trying to drive more student spaces to feed the workforce of a growing Alberta," Cleland said.
The new funding should sharpen the focus that post-secondary institutions now have on specialization in various programs, Cleland said, noting that programs such as fashion, tourism and hospitality management and water treatment are offerings that aren’t offered at many other institutions.
"They’re not very general and generic community-college-type programs. Fashion, sports management, water and wetlands and tourism and hospitality, those are quintessentially niche, specific Olds College programs," Cleland said.
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