YELLOWKNIFE - Aurora College's premier diamond cutting and polishing course, the only one of its kind in North America, is taking a brief hiatus but will be back in September, according to school officials.

"A lack of registration and a lack of jobs (available) were factors," said Jane Arychuk, the college's Yellowknife campus director.

"It's kind of a bad time of year, people aren't looking for training in March."

The 22-week program that Aurora College first offered in 2001 can handle between 10 and 12 students at a time and according to Arychuk, by registration deadline, only five students had applied.

According to Bob Ward, co-ordinator of Industrial and Mine Training at the college, 94 students have graduated since 2001 and the program boasts a 50 per cent placement rate. However, the closure of Deton'Cho Diamonds last year "hindered us placing students... but there's still room for us with attrition and movement in the industry."

Three cutting houses remain in Yellowknife, including the Polar Bear Diamond Factory, Laurelton Diamonds, and Arslanian Cutting Works, which together employ about 110 cutters and polishers. As well, a recent De Beers deal making 10 per cent of rough diamonds produced by its Snap Lake mine available to Northern cutters and polishers will be an estimated $28 million-a-year boon to the local industry.

Ward also noted that graduates from the program are not pigeonholed for a career strictly in the cutting and polishing realm.

"Most grads are being placed in the factories, but some have gone on to the sorting facilities," said Ward. "And they earn one credit from the Gemological Institute of America in a week-long course called diamond grading (so) they could go on to become gemologists, grade jewelry and appraise diamonds and other stones."