Yellowknife (Mar 15/06) - Aurora College president Maurice Evans hopes a recent report on education facilities will get Yellowknife students a new campus.

The 10-Year Education Facilities Plan, drafted by independent consultants hired by the GNWT, reported the college's Yellowknife campus doesn't have enough space to grow.

"We can't simply look at accommodating the programs we have now.

"We must assume some growth in the future," said Evans.

The Yellowknife campus offers several programs, including basic adult education and career certificates, computing and information systems, diamond cutting and polishing, mine training, as well as teaching and nursing programs.

That's roughly half of the programs offered at Aurora College's main campus in Fort Smith. As of March 1, the Yellowknife campus employs almost 40 instructors and serves 182 full-time students.

Programs that could be expanded at the Yellowknife campus are the nursing and computing and information systems programs, said Evans.

A plan for a new campus in the capital was one of the major recommendations of the Facilities Plan.

The college is set to renew another five-year lease at Northern United Place - where it utilizes several floors - until a new campus is built.

Evans hopes the college will have its own location by 2012.

"There's no question - we're tight for space in Yellowknife," he said. Aurora College students also make use of other Yellowknife buildings, such as the Learning on Franklin building, apartments in Nova Court and classrooms at the Kimberlite Career and Technology Centre.

Evans says an ideal location for a new campus would be downtown. Suggested properties include the former Akaitcho Hall and Gerry Murphy Arena sites.

But for a project that size, the bill will be costly. Evans is hoping the territorial government will help fund site studies in the near future to get the hunt for new facilities underway.

Ideas about where to find funding will come from the facilities committee, comprised of representatives from Yellowknife Catholic Schools, Yk District No. 1 and Aurora College representatives.

Evans hopes recommendations to begin surveying sites for the college will be in the facilities committee report, which will be submitted to Education Minister Charles Dent in the spring.