Adult Basic Education program to be privatized

The Newfoundland and Labrador government is planning to privatize part of the College of the North Atlantic's curriculum.

As outlined in Tuesday's budget, the college will lose its Adult Basic Education program.

The program is currently offered at 12 campuses across Newfoundland and Labrador. The ABE is a high school equivalency program designed for adults who did not complete high school.

Carol Furlong, president of NAPE, said this will mean job losses.

"That obviously means layoffs for people," said Furlong. "It means that they're actually thinking now of moving public services that are offered to the peopleand sending out to private industry for profit."

In a letter to all staff, college president Ann Marie Vaughan said ABE programs will continue until their scheduled end dates. She also saidthere will be an update on the cuts over the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, an inside college source told CBC that in excess of 100 jobs could be lost. The source said there are 103 faculty on the seniority list directly attached to ABE, withadditional resources not in that number.

The source addedthat in the end, there could be 100 to200 job cuts.