Great Plains College's Biggar campus, one of several campus locations. (submitted photo/Great Plains College)

By Angela Brown

Support for education

Great Plains College plans campus and online learning, tuition freeze for new school year

Jul 16, 2020 | 11:43 AM

Students attending Great Plains College’s campuses including the Biggar site in the fall will see some modifications as well as additional support for students, in response to the province’s COVID-19 precautions.

The college will offer its courses through a combination of in-person and online instruction. It is also implementing a tuition freeze to keep costs at the status quo for the 2020-21 school year.

President and CEO David Keast said given the applied nature of college programming, the college wanted to ensure students would be able to maintain the hands-on learning they need while also being able to take part in online sessions, so the blended course delivery will offer a combination of both.

“Students will spend some of the time on campuses and some of the time online,” he said.

Keast said there will also be student laboratory in-class sessions, for example, to continue to meet students’ requirements.

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“Students will be doing face-to-face labs. Because it is applied learning, you cannot really learn it online,” he added.

The college will put a freeze on tuition fees to make it easier for students’ finances.

“We understand that the COVID-19 situation creates a number of challenges for students, and one of them certainly is going to be financial challenges,” Keast said. “So we decided at Great Plains College, for 2020-2021 [the new school year], we would freeze all tuition and ancillary fees, and student services [fees]. There are no increases whatsoever.”

As well, the College previously extended the deadline to apply for scholarships by two months – to June 30, 2020, which has just past.

Keast said the college has also allotted some added scholarship support for students.

“In the partnership with the Ministry of Advanced Education, we gave out a bit of additional scholarship money, matching grants, as an emergency fund bursary for students who wanted to attend in the 2020-2021 academic year,” he said. “So close to $100,000 was given out to students who are eligible to apply.”

He said the college is doing its best to follow the COVID-19 precautions while also ensuring all students’ needs are met at the same time so they can pursue their studies.

“Within the context of COVID-19 and any provincial health guidelines which will apply, our management and staff will be working hard to provide students with the best on-campus experience possible under these circumstances,” Keast said.

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW