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Cap U welcomes end of ABE tuition fees

Adult Basic Education
capU

The kálax-ay campus of Capilano University in Sechelt has seen a steady increase in Adult Basic Education (ABE) enrolment since tuition fees ended last year, and university officials expect the trend to gain steam after last month’s provincial budget.

Premier John Horgan announced shortly after coming to power that his government would eliminate tuition for ABE effective Sept. 1, 2017. The 2018 budget confirmed the fees will not be returning.

Capilano U saw an immediate jump in people signing up for ABE courses last fall. On the Sunshine Coast, ABE enrollment went up 42 per cent in the 2017 fall term, and up 68 per cent in the current term. That’s well above the 22 and 42 per cent increases seen for the North Vancouver campus.

Becky Wayte, an ABE instructor and convenor based at the kálax-ay campus, said ABE was one of the first things Capilano, a college at the time, offered when it expanded to the Sunshine Coast and the program has been a mainstay ever since.

The impact of having to charge tuition for the courses was dramatic.

“As soon as the tuition fees had to be imposed, our registrations went down drastically,” Wayte said. “We used to offer five classes of science, math and English and within a term or two we were down to one class of each – it was alarming.”

Wayte believes the assurance in the budget will encourage more people who need to upgrade in order to go on to post-secondary courses or career training to register.

She said moving to offer the courses online helped keep the program viable, and may also be one of the reasons the increase in enrolment is much larger for the Sunshine Coast.

“It’s an important program. It was vulnerable people who were affected by the tuition imposition – people who need to finish high school or need pre-requisites to get into post secondary… A lot of those people were doing not very high paying jobs so they couldn’t afford the tuition when it was brought in. Now they’ve got that opportunity again.”

Wayte also said the kálax-ay campus is well positioned for the demand for ABE courses to continue its sharp upward trend because of the flexibility built into the program.