Stephanie McDonald
Northern News Services
Published Monday, September 10, 2007
SPENCE BAY - Taloyoak student Johnna Jayko left for John Paul II Bible school in Radway, Alta., last Monday with no territorial funding.
Johnna Jayko of Taloyoak has been denied student funding to attend a Bible college in Alberta. - photo courtesy of Johnna Jayko |
The $6,400 tuition, $200 for books, and the price of a plane ticket are largely being covered by private donors, after Nunavut's program to assist students with the costs of post-secondary education turned down Jayko's request for funds three times.
After being accepted to the Bible college in the beginning of June, 24-year-old Jayko immediately applied for funding from the Financial Assistance for Nunavut Students (FANS) program.
The request was denied because FANS will only fund students attending out of territory institutions that are approved to receive Canada Student Loans.
To get on that list, an institution must apply to its respective provincial government for recognition, said Mark MacKay, director of Adult Learning and Post-Secondary Services Division of the Department of Education.
It's a move that John Paul II has not taken, and one that has put Jayko in her current predicament.
Jayko appealed the initial FANS decision twice, only to be told both times that she didn't qualify to receive funding. Finally, she wrote to the Minister of Education Ed Picco. In her letter she pointed out that Glad Tiding Bible College in Rankin Inlet and Arthur Turner Bible College in Pangnirtung, both Anglican schools, are on the FANS approved list of schools.
"I'm very sorry to say that it looks for me like religious discrimination," Jayko wrote. "Yet the Canadian Charter of Rights says all religions have the same rights for benefits."
MacKay, whose department looks after the FANS program, said that this is the first instance of a Nunavut student attending a religious school in the south that is not an approved institution, as far as his staff can recollect. The issue in this case is not that John Paul II is a religious school, and the decision says nothing of the quality of the school or its programs, MacKay emphasized. It is simply not on the Canada Student Loans list and therefore Nunavut students cannot receive funds to attend it.
"When we look at an institution outside the territory, we have to count on the Canada Student Loans list," MacKay said. "We always respect each other's authorities in cross-jurisdictions. We would never presume to designate a place that a home jurisdiction hasn't."
The FANS program doesn't have the capacity to assess every institution worldwide that a Nunavut student hopes to attend, and therefore must depend on the approved list of schools.
Because the Government of Nunavut issues its own grants and loans, it has opted out of having its institutions on the Canada Student Loans list. Nevertheless, the Department of Education funds Nunavummiut attending Nunavut Arctic College and the two Anglican schools, MacKay said.
"I was really scared," Jayko admitted, after realizing FANS would not help her. She proceeded in applying to her local Career Development Officer for funding, but was told that they couldn't fund her if FANS hadn't. The story was the same when she applied for Employment Insurance. She also approached the Kitikmeot Inuit Association for help, but has yet to hear back from them.
"With all the phone calls, with all the faxes, with all the people I had to try to get a hold of, even the people who make the designations list of Canada, to go through all that trouble, it's kind of disappointing at the end," she said.
Finally, Jayko received $1,000 from the District Education Authority in Taloyoak. A donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, has covered the remainder of the cost of her tuition, books, and plane ticket.
"I'm really thankful to God for that," Jayko said on the phone from Taloyoak the weekend before leaving for school.
While thankful, she still feels uncomfortable accepting the money.
"If I can have funding from somebody else, I would feel a lot more comfortable."
The donated money, she knows, could be used for other things.
Perhaps the hardest to accept for Jayko was that the promise of assistance for post-secondary education for Nunavut students didn't hold true in her case.
"I knew that if you needed to go to school down south, they would help you," she said of FANS. In her letter to Minister Picco, she had pointed words:
"They said ... things will be easier and better for Inuit after (the) creation of Nunavut but it looks like in this department nothing has changed."
Minister Picco did not respond to calls to his office.
