Wednesday, September 03, 2014

Is There A Privatization Strategy Behind The Federal Cuts To Public ESL Education in BC?

AllYourClassroomsAreNoLonger
YoursVille


In case you haven't heard, the FedCons have cut funding that was used by the province to help fund adult education ESL classes at community colleges in Lotusland and beyond.

The Globe's Anqi Shen has the story, which is a sad one, in my opinion, for all kinds of reasons.

But buried deep within the story is a passage that I was kind of half waiting for as I moved down the page:

...(Citizen and Immigration Canada) gave a statement via e-mail saying it issued a five-week call for proposals last year for B.C. organizations looking to deliver federally funded settlement services “that can best provide newcomers with the services they need, such as language training and career counselling, for the best value for taxpayers’ dollars.”


Gosh.

Who are these 'organizations' who can provide services for the 'best value', I wonder?

.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

p3? in BC .Never!!!

G West said...

I think there is. In fact, I sent an email to Crawford Kilian at the tyee about this months ago - let me see if I can did it out of the file.

GW said...

That should be 'dig' it out - sheesh!

G West said...

Here's most of the email I sent to Kilian - and I checked but never did get anything back from him:

I'm emailing you because I was wondering if you have done any research into an outfit called the National Association of Career Colleges. I'm sure you know about them, it's an industry group which represents and advocates for private for profit schools (colleges). The association seems to have some close connections to the Harper Government. With the recent announcement of additional federal funding for foreign students and the agreement announced yesterday between First Nations Chief Atleo and the PM I think you're going to be seeing a lot more of these colleges in both these areas. Some of these outfits, Eminata Group for one, have a bit of a record for not doing the job they're paid to do very well...

Much of this stuff seems to me to be damaging funding levels for public schools. Camosun College here in Victoria has lost its funding for ESL programs in the past few weeks and I suspect those monies will be transferred to private for profit schools. I would not be surprised if this is happening in other parts of Canada too. I'm sure none of these institutions are unionized.

I have seen little to no coverage of these connections in the press and I thought, given your interest in public education, you might be interested


Obviously the bit about the First Nations education agreement is redundant since Atleo's departure...

Anyway, for what it's worth!

GW