SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Two of the city's education and training institutions are being shut down.
Genesis Group opened a new training room in the Nunasi building in 2007. The seats will now be empty after Nunasi Corporation shuts down the business after this semester. - photo courtesy of Genesis Group
|
Nunasi Corporation announced last week it is closing the downtown Yellowknife campus of Academy of Learning College and its Genesis Group Conference and Training Centre—both arms of the corporation's Northern Learning Institute.
The corporation has struggled to find profitability in the businesses for at least two years, said Franco Buscemi, director of communications and marketing.
"The whole Northern Learning Institute is what's being shut down," Buscemi said.
The college, which is one of more than 60 Academy of Learning locations across Canada, opened in Yellowknife in 1992.
Students and management were notified of the campus closing in March, when the private college stopped taking new enrolments.
Genesis Group, a professional development services company, has stopped taking on new contracts and is wrapping up all existing contracts, according to general manager Allison Kincaid, who said the downtown Genesis Group Conference Centre is still open "and will remain open for the foreseeable future."
Nunasi, a development corporation wholly-owned by the Inuit of Nunavut, bought out Genesis Group in 2004 from Yellowknifers John and Debora Simpson, in order to expand "badly needed" private training facilities in Nunavut and the rest of the North, then-CEO Fred Hunt told News/North.
Despite the continued need for private training facilities in the North, the acquisition was not able to bounce back from economic recession a few years later, Buscemi said.
"Business has struggled financially and I think the need -- I'm guessing -- is being filled by Aurora College and Arctic College in Nunavut, mainly," Buscemi said. "When the economy collapsed it really affected a lot of our companies including Northern Learning Institute which was already struggling a bit. So there was less money for everybody."
At the time the closure was announced, the Academy of Learning College Yellowknife Campus employed a staff of four, and Genesis Group also employed four.
Nunasi, which has more than 60 business ventures across a wide range of sectors, has been reviewing its entire portfolio, looking to unload or amalgamate a number of its subsidiaries that are struggling financially.
