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Enterprise scheduled to receive adult education courses this fall
Aurora College has funding for programming

Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, September 9, 2013

ENTERPRISE
Aurora College will soon offer adult literacy and basic education (ALBE) courses in Enterprise.

"It will definitely happen over the course of this year, starting in the fall, probably the later fall," said Ken Latour, Aurora College's regional program head for the Akaitcho and the South Slave.

Latour said the college receives annual funding from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to provide adult literacy and basic education courses in various communities.

"It's a formula like anything else, but it's roughly based on population," he said. "So we don't have enough money in Enterprise to have a full-time program."

Latour said, in the past few years, the college asked the Hamlet of Enterprise if there was a need for ALBE courses in the community and had been told there wasn't.

As a result, the money allocated for Enterprise was used at the Hay River Community Learning Centre, and people from Enterprise took courses in the neighbouring community, Latour explained. "We've had two or three students from Enterprise take courses here in the last few years."

However, this spring he was contacted by the Hamlet of Enterprise about offering courses in the community.

"They said that, this year, they felt that there were people in the community who would like to take some ALBE courses and some other stuff as well, like computer and technology training and so on," Latour said. "So with the money that we have, we can hire someone and have short courses running out there, but we're basically trying to augment our funding."

The college presently has enough funding to run about 200 hours of programming.

"The money is there. It's earmarked for Enterprise," Latour said.

The next step is to talk to interested people in Enterprise and find out if it should be a daytime program or an evening program.

"You've got to make sure your scheduling works for them or it makes no sense," Latour said.

The Hamlet of Enterprise has been seeking interest from potential students.

"We have two people that signed up," said Terry Testart, senior administrative officer with the hamlet, noting the names will be passed on to Aurora College.

Testart said he is hoping additional people will sign up. "I'd like to see more because I'm a strong believer in education."

The SAO said the hamlet would provide space in council chambers to offer the courses.

Latour said while two possible students might not sound like a lot, the funding is earmarked for Enterprise by the Department of Education, Culture and Employment.

"If the community is interested in having programming run out there, then that's where I'm going to run the program," he said.

Latour adding that once the courses are running, they may attract more students.

The program includes subjects such as math, English, computers, science, social studies, career planning, and financial literacy.

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