Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (Sep 03/99) - Many Northern students aim to get their university degree without ever leaving the North.

That goal may be a little bit closer if legislation set to be tabled in the legislative assembly next week becomes law.

"It's a short amendment to legislation," said Education Culture and Employment deputy minister Mark Cleveland.

"The next step will be to develop degree programs. I wouldn't say it'll be instantaneous, but we'll be moving down the road toward issuing degrees."

Cleveland estimated that Aurora College currently has 25 to 30 agreements with southern universities to deliver courses that will be accepted for credit.

"This legislation would allow for the development of courses that would be directly credited by Aurora College," Cleveland said.

"Over time we'll probably be offering degrees but we'll start slowly in selected areas to lead in that direction."

Cleveland mentioned some programs such as teacher education, which is now a diploma program, as an example of one program that could become a degree program.

Similarly, the nursing program, which has been up and running for several years now, has an accreditation process with external links to southern universities.

Potential development of an indigenous Northern business program is also possible.

Cleveland said there are two current programs which could be expanded.

First, there is the management studies diploma program and second, there is a program for business administration where courses are transferable to Athabaska University.

"These programs are all down the road but the first step is to get the legislation changed," he said.

"The next step is to develop the degree programs from what we have already."

Yellowknife campus director Mike Shouldice said the legislation could mean degree granting in several of the campuses.

In Yellowknife the nursing program could evolve into a degree while in Inuvik the social work program could evolve to a bachelor of social work, he said.

Shouldice said other possible program evolutions to degrees could be the renewable resource program, the teaching program and the business administration program in Fort Smith.