Disbanded group leaves funds to aquaculture students
April 25, 2019
By Matt Jones
Aquaculture students at North Island College (NIC) in British Columbia are the lucky beneficiaries of $110,000 from the British Columbia Aquatic Food Resources Society (BCAFRS).
vAquaculture students at North Island College in BC will benefit from the donation in the form of tuition discounts Aquaculture students at North Island College (NIC) in British ColumbiaThe organization was dissolved in 2017 and bestowed its remaining funds to support students interested in aquatic sciences at NIC. “The aquatic resource industry is an important contributor to the local economy and we wanted to support students interested in contributing to it in a sustainable way,” former BCAFRS president Monty Little said in NIC’s website.
The school will use some of those funds as a subsidy to allow students in their aquaculture program to save $1,000 on tuition.
While the tuition subsidy is the only specific use of the funds announced to date, it will not solely be used for that purpose, says Randall Heidt, vice-president-strategic initiatives for NIC. “There are other avenues for us to use the funds: we can support aquatic research projects and we can also support science students who aren’t necessarily in the aquaculture program,” he says. “This is a brand new aquaculture program for us. We had a certificate in the past; we’ve now added a new certificate in aquaculture and a diploma in year two. We’re using it to launch the new program and support and attract students to that new program.”
Heidt says certificate program is geared more towards people who are interested in entering the aquaculture industry, while the diploma program is for people already in the industry who are looking to increase their skills and knowledge base.
