Every college student in Ontario has been facing stress that goes way beyond assignments and preparing for exams. While the support staff college strike has just ended, students now have to catch up on appointments with essential services.
The deal between the College Employer Council (CEC) and the full-time support staff took over a month to reach, leading to inconvenience, stress and anxiety for thousands of students.
While the strike is over, the stress is not.
This goes much deeper than canceled appointments and picket lines outside the colleges. This strike is the result of the huge underfunding of Ontario colleges by the Ford government. The Ford government is failing its students!
For years, the Ford government has pushed education to the side and has kept it to the side, with the Ford government basically refusing to invest more into education. Ontario spends less on college students than any province in Canada.
The lack of funding has been proven by struggles with services, overworked and underpaid staff and labour disputes which affected college students all across Ontario.
In the article “Durham College students stressed by strike action,” Lauren Cole tells the story of first-year nursing student, Mursal Abrahimi, who made an appointment to discuss their class schedule after months of trying, only to get a cancellation email two hours before her appointment, after she traveled three hours all the way from Scarborough.Even though support staff are back on campus, students like Abrahami will need to wait in line to get appointments because everything is backed up.
During the picket lines, some students had to wait over two hours to get to class. Lots of students were late and some missed classes entirely. With midterms and midterm grades, students will now see the impact in their marks, adding to their stress levels.
All this keeps stressing students out more and more with their already busy lives, some working jobs, others traveling long distances, others are parents and have families they need to take care of, meanwhile the Ford government refuses to help colleges properly fund education.
Student are the collateral damage.
A solution could be for the government to finally start putting colleges and students first. Underfunding colleges in Ontario will affect the next generation of workers. Education is not a luxury, it is the foundation for the future.
Students already do their part, now it is time for the government to do theirs. Students deserve better!