Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Members of Parliament, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick, or CCNB, regarding federal funding for minority-language post-secondary institutions.
The CCNB has more than 90 programs of study and has admitted 2,324 students this year. By cultivating an inclusive and diverse environment, the CCNB makes a significant contribution to the demographic, economic, social and cultural development of the province of New Brunswick.
You are no doubt already aware that due to a delay, we haven't yet concluded our new funding agreement and are waiting for the details on funding from the official languages in education program. Our core funding agreement ended in March 2023, and since then we've been twice informed that the agreement has been extended. As a result, we have no information on how much funding will be granted to us under the agreement—which was to be renewed in 2023—and on the distribution of the funds set out in the action plan for official languages for post-secondary institutions.
This federal funding is crucial for our institution. In particular, it will enable us to carry out a major exercise to modernize our internal systems, and another to transform our programs of study and the services we offer to support the recruitment and retention of our student population. We've used federal funding to start making significant changes to our curriculum, with a focus on skills development. In addition to enhancing our graduates' competency profile, this approach makes our program delivery more flexible. For example, we can offer combined micro-certifications that result in full certification in a single discipline, and we can serve multiple cohorts in the same program at the same time.
Ultimately, this helps us to better meet employers' needs by enabling our students to keep their jobs at the same company throughout their studies, and to provide a larger number of graduates per year who are ready to enter the labour market immediately. Students also benefit because it's a great advantage for them to be able to better align their training with their ability to work.
Our college provides training on five campuses in the francophone regions of New Brunswick. The delivery of college programs in rural areas poses particular challenges. Economies of scale are much easier to achieve in urban areas than our rural areas. Our fixed costs remain high, while our revenue depends on how many students we can admit to our programs.
As a result, the current funding formula and delayed confirmation are preventing us from fully moving forward with our modernization initiative and hindering our ability to develop and implement our efficiency practices. They are also jeopardizing the student experience at the CCNB. That's why we would like to see special projects funding integrated into institutions' core funding to avoid this kind of problem in the future.
Finally, since your study is also about how influential welcoming international students can be, I'd like to tell you about a new reality at our institution. Historically, college students from New Brunswick have had a strong tendency not to travel more than 80 kilometres from their home to enrol in our programs. They often prefer to change programs rather than move to another region, either for financial reasons or due to complications in their lives, or because they have children at home. A major challenge for us regarding international students is that they need housing, whereas our Canadian students do not. So that would require a significant investment in residences.
With that, I will conclude my presentation. I'll be pleased to answer your questions.