{"id":7722,"date":"2019-03-28T02:14:26","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T02:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/?p=7722"},"modified":"2019-04-04T02:15:26","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T02:15:26","slug":"ignite-delivers-student-choice-postcards-to-doug-fords-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/?p=7722","title":{"rendered":"Ignite delivers \u201cstudent choice\u201d postcards to Doug Ford\u2019s office"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent Ignite campaign titled \u201cstudent choice initiative risks my\u201d saw a total of 5000 hand-written student postcards delivered to the Ford government during the Feb. 4 student march at Queen\u2019s Park to protest changes to the Ontario post-secondary education system.<\/p>\n

Ignite president Monica Khosla transported the green and black postcards, which were created to challenge the decision to give students options to opt out of paying certain student fees.<\/p>\n

\"An

An Ignite postcard, which was among the many sent to Doug Ford’s office. (Amanda Naccarato\/GH360)<\/p><\/div>\n

A letter posted on the student organization’s website, explains that the Conservative government failed to recognize that students are using resources Ignite offers such as services, events and clubs.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy not having student unions, you no longer have a voice,\u201d says Khosla addressing the student body.<\/p>\n

The Ford government announced several changes to universities and colleges across Ontario in January. They include reducing the cost of tuition by 10 per cent, changing the guidelines of OSAP and giving students choice in terms of student fees.<\/p>\n

Maheen Nazim, the vice-president of Ignite representing the University of Guelph-Humber, says she appreciates the reduced tuition but is unsure about the other implications of these changes. This includes the uncertainty of mandatory fees.<\/p>\n

Student fees allow for everyone to have the ability to use services available to them. \u201cIf I don\u2019t use it someone else can,\u201d says Nazim.<\/p>\n

Ignite receives its funding solely from student fees, according to Nazim. She explains that full-time students paid $459.70 for all non-academic fees this year. A total of $163 of the student fees goes towards funding the student government.<\/p>\n

She says Ignite is confident in their funding for the next year as they have budgeted two years in advance. However, they are concerned about the jeopardy of the amenities they offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to compromise services,\u201d explains Nazim.<\/p>\n

Conservative Northumberland-Peterborough South MPP David Piccini says allowing students to only pay for the services they use is part of \u201cputting students first.\u201d<\/p>\n

The parliamentary assistant to the minister of training, colleges and universities concedes much is still unknown about how student choice will be incorporated into the 2019 fall semester. But Piccini says students will pay the \u201cpercentage of the pot they choose to opt into.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Piccini, the fees may be bundled into certain categories such as \u201csports and athletics\u201d and \u201cculture and arts.\u201d Health and safety fees are non-negotiable.<\/p>\n

Currently, there is no list available of what fees students will be able to opt in and out of.<\/p>\n

Vice-provost and chief academic officer of Guelph-Humber John Walsh explains universities and colleges are involved in \u201ctechnical meetings\u201d with the ministry to get the definitive list of mandatory student fees.<\/p>\n

Walsh says opting out of student fees is more complex than the 10 per cent tuition cut also being imposed in the 2019 academic year as \u201cdifferent programs have different auxiliary fees.\u201d<\/p>\n

This still raises questions regarding whether fees such as Ignite\u2019s health and dental insurance plan would be included in this list of non-negotiable fees. Nazim is also unsure of what falls under these categories of compulsory and non-compulsory fees.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very tough being a student,\u201d says Nazim, who helped encourage students to sign Ignite postcards.\u00a0 \u201cIt feels unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Student organization Ignite sends postcards to Doug Ford’s office to protest the Ontario’s government’s recent changes to the post-secondary education system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":7724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[62],"tags":[207,344,66,59,227,412,213,175],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7722"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}