Lakehead University is contending with a $10-million deficit due to provincial changes to its Faculty of Education.

THUNDER BAY -- Lakehead University is contending with a $10.6-million shortfall on its roughly $120-million budget and administrators say most of that weight can be placed firmly on the back of provincially-mandated changes to its Faculty of Education.

Ontario is attempting to manage a surplus of primary and secondary teachers but those changes are uniquely affecting Lakehead's Education program.

In June of 2013, the Ministry of Training, Universities and Colleges notified universities it would be making a 25 per cent cut in support per Education student.

Lakehead vice-president of administration and finance Kathy Pozihun said that exacerbated wider efforts the ministry is making to ebb teacher enrolment, compounding into a nearly $7-million tumble in Lakehead’s cash flow.

Pozihun said the university is early in its budget development and she remains optimistic that outreach efforts the school is making to Queen’s Park will lead to change.



“We’ve got lots of options,” she said.



“The biggest challenge in front of us right now is continued advocacy to the government and helping them to understand the disproportional impact this has had on Lakehead University, primarily in Northwestern Ontario.”

The clawback in provincial support for education students puts a direct dent in Lakehead's bottom line but it's only the latest in a campaign aimed at drawing back Ontario's Education faculties.

In 2005, the Ontario College of Teachers declared an end to the provincial teacher shortage. By 2011, it was releasing figures that showed two-thirds of recent teaching graduates were either unemployed or underemployed.

The ministry took the lead on reducing Education graduates from Ontario universities. It extended one-year Professional and Consecutive programs to two years, effective in September of 2015.

In 2012, the ministry also began imposing "hard caps" on Education faculty enrolment across the province. Where 16,500 new Ontario teachers graduated in 2007, only 2,000 are expected to graduate in 2016.

Between the well-known teacher surplus and the province reining in admissions, Lakehead's Education program enrolment fell 121 per cent between 2010 and 2015.

Lakehead's Education faculty is capped at 428 students for 2015-2016. Between its 307 Concurrent Education students and another 84 registered for the Professional program, however, Lakehead falls short of that cap.

When the cap size doubles next year to accommodate the second intake for the two-year Professional program, the faculty is anticipating it will only admit 400 students.

"I think the biggest knee-jerk reaction is, now that it's a two-year program, students will have to pay twice as much to get licensed," said education undergraduate studies chair Teresa Socha.

"I'm sure we had an increased number last year, anyone who was eligible to came in (for the one-year, Professional program) so now it's students who really want to become teachers who will come in."

To cope with the narrowed scope, Lakehead has cut its entire Junior/Intermediate stream aimed at educators teaching Grades 4 to 10. As its Masters in Education program isn't impacted by the 25 per cent funding cut, the department has increased enrolment from 70 students in 2010 to 131 in 2015.

Until 2014-2015, the faculty continued to accept Consecutive students to complete their degrees, followed by the one-year Professional year. It will be beholden to offering both the one and two-year programs until 2019.

The Concurrent program has -- up until this change in the ministry regulations -- always been really strong," Socha said.

"In 2010, we had 900 students graduate between both campuses. The majroity of students are concurrent students. They're in other undergraduate degrees.

"If we have changes to adminstration fees in education, it impacts everyone."



