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Advanced Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides meets with board members and staff at MHC in September 2019. (Photo by Colton McKee)
Education announcement

Advanced Ed. minister to make announcement on “transformational changes” in post-secondary schools

Jan 19, 2020 | 2:22 PM

Medicine Hat, AB – Alberta’s minister responsible for post-secondary education in the province will be making an announcement Monday on changes to get more value for taxpayers from colleges and universities.

A release issued Sunday afternoon stated the announcement will be about, “transformational changes that connect education to jobs,” with Advanced Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides being joined by post-secondary school stakeholders.

In a letter sent to 21 post-secondary institutes in the province last week, Nicolaides stated expenditures from schools are forecast to be higher than anticipated. The letter outlined measures for institutes to take such as curbing higher than usual spending at the end of the fiscal year, freezing spending on non-essential hiring, travel and spending as well as providing monthly reports on progress.

During Nicolaides visit to Medicine Hat College in September, the minister citing the McKinnon Panel Report and that Alberta spent $5.6 billion on post-secondary education in the 2018-19 fiscal year. He stated that amount of investment wasn’t matched by employment or enrollment statistics.

“It is certainly alarming. As I mentioned just a moment ago we do have the most expensive post-secondary system in the entire country and we don’t appear to be getting strong results. So we have to take a very close look at why the system is overspending,” Nicolaides told CHAT News at the time.