Province invests in post-secondaries in southern Alberta

By Trevor Busch
Sunny South News
editor@tabertimes.com

The provincial government recently announced $193 million will be invested in post-secondary institutions to create up to 8,000 new seats in high-demand programs in health care, technology and business.

Here in southern Alberta, that translates into 288 new seats for a total investment of $6,101,506 at Medicine Hat College and the University of Lethbridge.

“I think it’s a great thing,” said Taber-Warner MLA Grant Hunter. “One of the issues we’re facing right now is labour, we need to have skilled labourers to be able to get everything done that we’re doing in terms of the food processing corridor, just the growth that we’re seeing in the province. Our problem isn’t unemployment. It’s the labour crisis, we just don’t have enough skilled labourers to do the work. So there has to be that investment in our post-secondary education system.”

Medicine Hat College will see a $2,105,084 investment for the Practical Nursing program (96 seats).

The U of L will see multiple investments, in its Bachelor of Nursing program in conjunction with Lethbridge College ($1,887,304 – 57 seats), Bachelor of Computer Science program ($1,746,276 – 100 seats), and for its Graduate Certificate in Data Science program ($362,842 – 35 seats).