Faculty at Okanagan College are facing times of uncertainty as the school deals with a drop in international student enrolment.
“I don’t know how we can mitigate this to the level where we aren’t going to have devastating losses and some family impacts and economic impacts. We’re going to lose international students, that’s another economic impact,” said Sharon Mansiere, professor and faculty association president.
Earlier this year the federal government set a two-year intake cap on international students. Then, another blow, effective Nov. 1, the post-graduate work permit program changed its requirements to allow only permits in fields identified as experiencing a labour shortage.
“For us at Okanagan College, it means that eight per cent of our programs are eligible, which is a huge reduction and obviously impacts the number of students coming to Okanagan College,” said Jenn Goodwin, the college’s enrolment and college relations vice-president.
The college saw a 50 per cent decrease in international students this fall as a result of the changes and it’s anticipating a further drop of 70 per cent come January.
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“Like all colleges across Canada right now this is something that we’re finding very concerning and the impacts of these policies are deeply distressing,” Goodwin said.
About 11 term faculty contracts have already been cancelled for the winter semester, with about five more expected to be impacted.
“We have a model for international students that’s a cost-recovery model. So when students don’t come then we need to make sure we’re not spending as though they’re here,” Goodwin said.
The president of the faculty association sent out a warning letter to faculty members after the provost told the heads of all the unions on campus that the cuts could go as deep as about 80 full-time positions.
“Those positions have been flagged I can’t say they won’t be renewed but they’ve been flagged with concern, I’m concerned they won’t be renewed and beyond that we were told that there would also be cuts into continuing,” Mansiere said.
The college did not confirm any more cuts beyond the part-time contracts that have already been cancelled.
