Dual-credit students back in class

Ontario’s college teachers are back to work, and the 15 BML students taking dual-credit courses with Georgian are now back in class. Those students will have a tighter schedule to make up for the lost time.

The Ontario government ended the five-week strike by voting on Nov. 19 to force the instructors back to work.

Ontario’s Colleges feature part-time employed teachers as well as full-time staff. While most of these part-time teachers may still put in the hours a full-time does, their pay as well as their job security lacked and they wished to be regarded in the same light as full-time staff are -- or at least with the benefits a full-time position offers. A strike for these rights unfolded and unfortunately, for a very long time, there was no sight of the end.

The deprived faculty were on protest for a higher wage and comfortable job security starting October 16, and until these demands were met, classes at colleges across Ontario did not run, affecting approximately 500,000 part-time/full-time students across the province. And though these seem like reasonable demands, the College Employer Council mentions to The Globe and Mail that the requests made by the faculty would add millions of dollars to the costs of running the schools.

Some students continued to show up on campus day-to-day, trying to keep on top of their studies but after so long, were beginning to wear down and felt like that motivation would soon disappear if the issue was not resolved.

College attendees at the time also formed a petition that would reimburse tuition money that had been spent on classes they were missing due to the strike. At approximately five weeks in, some students had begun addressing their teachers personally, in hopes of reassuring themselves that they could get back to classes soon. Their concerns were that make-up classes would have to be put in order, which had the possibility of pushing back student’s graduation date and could also affect jobs they have lined up in the future/when they are free to start making a living.

Mr. Lade predicted that the government would eventually have to legislate the teachers back to work but the government had publicly noted that they had no plans to step in and try to bring the strike to a closing. The weekend of November 3, part-time teachers were offered a solution, allowing some hope for the end of this issue. The teachers voted on this offer between November 14 and November 16, and despite the Union expressing disinterest in the terms being offered and were on the track of refusing, the strike has now ended.

Fortunately for high school students however, it was still possible to apply for college this fall but these applicants have missed out on many opportunities to experience information sessions/campus tours. And luckily, this strike ended before Christmas since Mr. Lade and Mr. McGrath wanted everyone applied to post-secondary education by then.

Current applicants, such as Lauren Reville, share their relief: “It’s nice now that the strike is over because I can now look into the colleges again and not have to worry about applying and possibly not being able to see the campuses. I now have confidence in applying.”