Aurora College to shut down all of its community learning centres

Aurora College has told staff it plans to shut down all of its community learning centres across the Northwest Territories by the end of June this year.
The college called all community learning centre staff to a meeting at 3:30pm on Thursday at which the news was announced, then issued a news release shortly afterward.
Thirty-one indeterminate and term employees “may be impacted,” the college stated. Some casual positions will not be renewed and some vacancies will not be filled. The Union of Northern Workers, in a separate statement, said 47 unionized positions were affected.
In its news release, the college said its governors had unanimously voted to close the centres “to modernize Aurora College’s delivery of academic upgrading and to resolve the ongoing issues of low enrolment.”
Aurora College has community learning centres in around two-thirds of the NWT communities.
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They are designed to offer education upgrading to people who live in small, often isolated communities, away from the three main college campuses of Fort Smith, Inuvik and Yellowknife.
The centres’ programming varies by community, though the college’s website states that most centres offer some form of Aurora College’s Adult Literacy and Basic Education program.
The college’s promotional materials call its community learning centres “a great place to start your education journey.”
In 2022, then-education minister RJ Simpson – now the premier – said “an increased role for community learning centres across the NWT” was one example of “meaningful changes to our post-secondary system” that the territorial government wanted to advance.
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In May last year, the college’s outgoing president at the time had said staff were working to align the community learning centres’ upgrading courses with the BC curriculum being adopted in NWT schools. There was no mention, at the time, of any plan to cut back on the centres’ work.
However, the college said on Thursday that its governors now held a significantly different view.
“Over the past several years, enrolment and completion rates at the community learning centres have been falling dramatically. The current delivery model has been in place for a few decades and has become prohibitively expensive, outdated, and ineffective,” the college stated.
“The community learning centres are not meeting the needs of learners and communities as a result of these serious issues.”
The college said academic upgrading options will be offered in person at its three main campuses “as well as through online deliveries.”
“To support the new focus, Aurora College is withdrawing from the partnership with Inclusion NWT, which operates the Yellowknife Literacy Outreach Centre, as of June 30, 2025, and will no longer be offering literacy-level programming,” the news release added.
The college said it will “work with impacted students and others to help them consider their options for academic upgrading.”
Union ‘deeply concerned’
In a news release issued shortly after the college met with staff on Thursday, the Union of Northern Workers said it “strongly opposed” the move.
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“The impact on their livelihoods, families, and mental health will be incalculable,” the union said of affected staff in a statement attributed to its president, Gayla Thunstrom.
“The union is deeply concerned about how this will impact small communities in the NWT, particularly those with already limited access to secondary education and upgrading opportunities.”
Thunstrom pointed to various past statements in which the college had promised to increase, rather than eliminate, its presence in the territory’s smaller communities. As of Thursday, the college’s website still promised that it would “increase access to learning opportunities by having a presence in every community.”
“Aurora College’s transition to a polytechnic should not come at the cost of community-based learning,” Thunstrom stated.
“In times of economic downturn, we should be looking at strengthening the education of northerners, not reducing availability.
“By reducing access to education and the economic opportunities it provides, we further increase the dependency on an overburdened system to provide for individuals.”
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