Supporter of Native Issues

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The Blue Quills Native Education Centre will be closing its doors to many students this summer after receiving $1 million budget slash on top of its $1 million deficit, says its president.

Joe Dion says the school is in a 'no-win situation' and is being forced to layoff more staff. Last year the school laid-off 20 staff members.

However, Dion feels that the drop in services to students is far more serious as the high school component will only admit 150 students this year compared to 230 last year and post-secondary enrolment must drop to 120 from last year's 160.

"The government expects us to operate following a drastic budget cut, yet they also expect us to have money left over to pay off the deficit," complains Dion, who explains that the center has a high graduation rate for students. The June graduation saw more than 60 students receive their diplomas.

Dion is also concerned that because about 30 per cent of the students are not native, the provincial government refuses to supply funding saying the school, including the non-native students, are a federal responsibility.

However, Canada Manpower Career Counsellor Don Marshall says many of the problems facing Blue Quills and other reserve-based institutions is a lack of qualified personnel to run the programs.

"There are virtually no graduates of bachelor of social work programs . . . and the same is true for bachelor of education," said Marshall.

The Blue Quills cutback comes close on the heels of recent cutbacks of about $70,000 to the Old Sun College based on the Blackfoot reserve near Calgary.