Northern Alberta Institute of Technology pausing 18 programs amid financial pressures

Eighteen programs at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology are on the chopping block, amid rising cost pressures and declining international student enrolment. 

The school will be pausing the programs to undergo a further review. Peter Leclaire, NAIT's vice-president academic, said during a news conference Thursday that the school will help ensure NAIT is offering relevant and sustainable programming.

"This decision was not made lightly," Leclaire said. 

NAIT is already seeing less international student enrolment, and anticipates declines over the next three years, he said. The school recorded around 4,000 international students in recent years, but he expects that number could drop to 1,200.

The institution is among many post-secondary schools in Alberta feeling the impact of changes in federal policy, that caps the number of study permit applications that can be accepted.

Leclair also cited rising costs and tariffs as other factors in the potential program cuts.

"International tuition, it can be as much as three times as much as what a domestic student can pay and can make a big difference — and has helped to sustain some of our programs," he said.

The programs that could be affected include:

• Two programs in the school of health and life sciences: the leadership in healthcare certificate and personal fitness trainer diploma;
• Eight in the school of media and information technology, including the captioning and court reporting diploma;
• Two in the school of energy and natural resources, including the alternative energy diploma;
• Two in the school of construction and building sciences, including the surveying and geospatial engineering technology diploma;
• Three in the school of manufacturing and automation, including the nanosystems engineering technology diploma;
• And the school of transportation's pre-employment auto body repair certificate.

Students who are midway through a program will be able to complete it, but those who were planning to attend in September will have to either accept an alternate program or take a tuition refund.

Leclaire said some 450 people have accepted offers into those programs or have offers pending.

The school chose which programs to pause after analyzing application and enrolment rates, labour market outcomes, employment rates, program satisfaction and financial viability, Leclaire said.

"We hear repeatedly about the skilled trades and skilled technologies where we're seeing great growth, and we're just trying to align to best serve the economy and Alberta with the resources that we have," he said.

Any decision to suspend a program must go to academic council, he added.

CBC News obtained an email sent to NAIT staff from Stephen McMillan, the dean of the schools of transportation and manufacturing and automation, in which he says the programs in those departments are being paused "with the intent to suspend."

Shauna MacDonald, president of the NAIT Academic Staff Association, said it sounds like the decision to eliminate these programs has already been made.

"It was absolutely shocking. This is a huge number of programs. It seems like a real knee-jerk reaction," MacDonald told CBC News.

About 100 staff and faculty members in these programs could be affected, she said.

MacDonald agreed there are new financial pressures, but she said inadequate funding from the provincial government to post-secondary institutions is the bigger issue.

CBC News has contacted the Advanced Education Ministry for comment.

Captioning and court reporting diploma has 'no direct alternative'

Correspondence received by students said the captioning and court reporting diploma program has "no direct alternative," but NAIT will help applicants find other programs that align with their interests. 

Students of the program say there is nothing else like it in Western Canada.

Daisy Reyes, who graduates from the program next month and helped restart its club, says it's frustrating to see the community they've built disappear.

"This really just came out of nowhere, just pulling the rug from underneath people's feet who were really looking into the future with this," Reyes said.

She's also worried about what it means for the supply of court reporters in Canada.

"I just don't understand where they're headed with this. I feel like there's no foresight into how this affects, not only the court reporting industry, but also the legal industry," she said.

The school planned to cut the program 15 years ago, but reversed course after a protest.