Students, colleges and 12,000 striking faculty will learn Thursday if the “forced vote” on an offer has been accepted or rejected by instructors — and whether the ongoing job action will come to an end.

Until the results are in, Deb Matthews, minister of advanced education and skills development, said the government is in a “wait-and-see” mode.

“I can tell you that the premier and myself, we are very concerned about the impact on students, and every day that the strike goes on means that more students are losing on their education,” she told reporters at Queen’s Park.

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The strike, now nearing the end of week five, has impacted hundreds of thousands of students, who on Wednesday held a number of small protests. A group of 14 have started a class-action lawsuit, and the student government at Algonquin College in Ottawa has spent $20,000 on radio and video ads urging their teachers to vote in favour of the final offer from the College Employer Council.

The council made the one-time request to the Ontario Labour Relations Board for the “forced vote,” and in order to be approved the offer requires 50-per-cent plus one to be in favour

This is the longest strike in the history of Ontario college faculty.

“We are waiting for the vote results … we’re looking at what options might be available to us after we get the results of the vote,” Matthews also said, declining to be specific so as not to influence the vote “in any way.”

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“I’m not going to muse about what might happen after a vote,” Matthews said. “What I’ve said from the beginning is that we want students back in the classroom, we want faculty back in the classroom. We respect the collective bargaining process, we respect the law of the land and we are looking at all options.”

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During Question Period, NDP Education Critic Peggy Sattler said “this Liberal government’s failure to fund the college system appropriately and its failure to lead during this labour dispute has created a hot mess” and caused incredible hardship for students.

Earlier in the day, Premier Kathleen Wynne told reporters her “hope is that everyone involved will put young people at the centre of their decision-making … I know that young people are very frustrated …

“My commitment is that we work to make sure that students don’t lose their term. And there are funds that have been set up at colleges to help to reimburse students if they have additional costs. But, you know, we want to get those young people back in their classes as soon as possible.”

With files from Robert Benzie