The federal government has confirmed it will make significant funding cuts to the University of the Arctic, according to a university press release.
Created in 2001, UArctic is an online university that provides skills training to students from colleges in the Canadian North. It is a co-operative network that has more than 130 member institutions, including 33 in Canada with more than 10,000 students enrolled in courses since 2010.
UArctic offers undergraduate courses that introduce students to the landscape, peoples and issues in the circumpolar region, according to their website. The circumpolar region includes areas north of the tree-line in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia and Siberia.
Funding cuts to the program have renewed the debate about how training, skills and human development are needed in the Canadian North.
“Canada is the only country without a university in the North,” said James Stauch, vice-president (programs and operations) of the Walter & Duncan Gordon Foundation, a non-profit organization that researches governance and civil society in the Canadian North.
“Education in the Arctic needs to be a federal priority much like Arctic security . . . security doesn’t mean anything if you can’t provide the means to build a society that can work,” Stauch said.
UArctic’s central philosophy is that colleges and universities in the circumpolar North benefit from pooling resources, rather than offering full-time programs to small amounts of students in remote areas, according to the university’s website.
But UArctic doesn’t grant degrees. Instead, it provides extra university credits to students in northern institutions. This involves connecting credits from northern colleges into universities in southern Canada that do offer degrees.
The program offers seven courses granted through individual college programs. The credits students receive through UArctic go towards a degree in the UArctic member institution in which they’re enrolled.
The Canadian government had previously been a staunch supporter of the program with taxpayers contributing $3.8 million between 2004 and 2010, according to the CBC.
In early 2011, the federal government said the university’s funding would be cut from $700,000 to $150,000. This means Canadian institutions will continue to participate in the program, but Canada will no longer have input in the curriculum, according to a UArctic press release.
According to Brent Slobodin, assistant deputy of education in the Yukon, UArctic provides one course through Yukon College, which he said isn’t significant.
“The government of the Yukon’s perspective is that we are pursuing other options for post-secondary education,” Slobodin said. “The territories are trying to work together to find something that will work.”
The funding decision is regrettable and will lead to significant challenges to at least two of the university’s programs: the circumpolar studies undergraduate program and the north2north student mobility program.
Both programs are offered through Canadian universities, UArctic president Lars Kullerud said in a press release.
