New funding from the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) will improve outreach to remote areas by the Queen’s Aboriginal Teacher Education Program (ATEP). The $421,500 over two years will support the sustained delivery of the programs at Queen’s and remote, community based sites in Northwestern Ontario.

In many Aboriginal communities, education programs are often not available because student cohorts are too small to make them viable.

“It is my hope that this funding will allow us to make the community-based ATEP better than ever,” says Lindsay Morcom (Education), ATEP program coordinator. “This project represents a true partnership with our community-based sites. In addition to facilitating contact between our existing sites it will also open the door to remote delivery in additional Aboriginal communities.”

The MTCU also announced $358,123 in funding to support technology education. Queen’s is a partner in the Brock University-led Technological Education Consortium which is using the funding to plan, design and deliver a new collaborative program in technology education.

 “This is an important initiative in sustaining technological education programs in Ontario,” says Peter Chin (associate dean, Education). “This funding will enable us to create and use new communications technologies to support technological education and to foster collaboration and connections among the educational institutions involved.”

Notice of this funding envelope is great news to the Aboriginal Teacher Education Program students at community-based sites, as well as the technological education students, who are often mature students working in technical fields.

With this funding Queen’s will run a Virtually ATEP extension to its existing instructional strategies that will allow small First Nation student groups to virtually join with students from other communities where courses are being offered. Increased student access as well as enhanced information sharing between remote sites is an exciting enrichment of community based programming at Queen’s.

The MCTU Fund was developed to provide a vehicle for sharing capacity through teaching and learning resources and practicum placements, allowing teacher-candidates to continue to live and work in their hometowns without having to travel or spend long periods of time away from home to complete their teacher education.

For more information about these programs, see Aboriginal Teacher Education Program, Aboriginal Teacher Education Program (Community-Based) and Technological Education.