Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jun 23/00) - Cold June drizzle didn't run the paint on the NWT Student Coalition's cardboard signs in front of the legislature Thursday.

About 50 students upset with policy changes to student financial assistance listened to student coalition president Moira Vane challenge Jake Ootes, minister of Education, Culture and Employment, to eat Kraft Dinner. Their challange was to illustrate how tough it is financially for some students. Ootes and Indian Affairs minister Jim Antoine both obliged.

"Students need to be a part of the process," Vane told the crowd using a megaphone.

The coalition is upset with some policies under the new student financial assistance legislation passed in March.

"Students who are half-way through their degrees aren't benefitting," said Jennifer Hutchinson, writer and third-year international development studies student at Guelph University in Ontario.

Hutchinson attended school in Yellowknife for eight years. Under the old system she received two semesters of grant money for every three years she spent in an NWT school.

Under the new system, if she were to start school in September for the first time, she would get one semester for every year of NWT schooling. Now going into her third year, Hutchinson has spent her quota of grant money.

"The government has invested in these students and they've come through," says Vane. "Now they're left out."

Ootes met with the coalition a few weeks ago and was presented with 14 requests.

He said he'd have an answer by Friday.