One week since the closure of the SGA

One week ago, the School of Global Access at Bow Valley College officially closed its doors. While the ESL program has been terminated, the students’ urgent need to learn English remains. The dedicated instructors are no longer there to support newcomers on their journey, and are forced to find a new career likely outside their field of ESL education.

We recently learned that when federal funding for the LINC program was offered to Bow Valley College, it came with only a 10% reduction for the first year of the contract. This would have required minimal job loss and some program restructuring. Given this, the decision to eliminate ESL programming at the college is even more difficult to comprehend.

It is never too late to call attention to Minister Sawhney’s responsibility to hold Bow Valley College accountable to its mandate from the Alberta government to provide ESL education for newcomers.

We are still awaiting a response from the Minister of Advanced Education regarding a meeting to present our petition and its signatures. Stand Up for ESL will continue advocacy efforts until the Ministry of Advanced Education recognizes what’s at stake.

Finally, with the federal election now behind us, we aim to join forces with other organizations and MPs across the country to appeal to the Minister of Immigration to fully restore LINC funding. If you’ve already sent a letter to your MP about this issue, please consider following up or resending if your MP is newly elected.

Thank you for sharing the petition—we’re on our way to reaching 1,000 signatures!