CBU president says school won't revisit decision to cancel online-only B.Ed.

Students are hoping Cape Breton University will reconsider its cancellation of an eight-month online teaching degree, but the university's president says that's not going to happen.

David Dingwall said the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission, which advises three provincial governments on post-secondary matters, intentionally scuttled the unique bachelor of education program after its first successful offering earlier this year.

He said the commission was "probably never in favour of this initiative," and said it "accepted arguments from our detractors not to proceed with a second cohort and if we were to proceed with a second cohort, there were so many restrictions that it would become impossible to implement."

Dingwall refused to say who the university's "detractors" were.

CBU abruptly pulled the plug on the program last week.

At the time, the university's dean of education said that some of the conditions of the program approval from the commission meant students would not be able to complete their practical training within eight months and CBU would not be able to meet a rushed deadline to file for accreditation on a program that is not offered anywhere else in the country.

Last-minute notice 'a shock'

Ibrahim Elayyan, a student in Dartmouth, N.S., who was ready to start the program in January, was one of several students who sent emails over the weekend to CBU, the province and the higher education commission asking for someone to reconsider the cancellation.

He said the last-minute notice came as a shock.

"Many students took out lines of credit [or] student loans and rearranged their whole life for January and now all of a sudden, they kind of put their studies and their life on pause."

Elayyan asked if students could start in January as planned or within a month or two after that, but as of Monday afternoon, had not received a response.

"I don't know if they're working on something behind the scenes or they're simply just ignoring us until after the holidays," he said.

Dingwall said CBU is working on a possible 12-month program, but that's not guaranteed.

"We'll try to work through those minefields over the next number of weeks along with the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission, which I believe have sandbagged the province of Nova Scotia as it relates to this particular program," he said.

"I don't want to say it's a certainty, but we've got to look at it pretty hard that they're not going to have draconian provisions for that one as well."

Elayyan said students cannot put their lives on hold until then.

The Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission did not return a request for comment.