Students at Algonquin College are relieved an 18-day strike by support staff is over, restoring access to financial aid, registration, daycare, and Internet service.
“I couldn’t access my courses (online) during school,” said student Jonathan Anglin, 20.
So he had to go home to check his coursework.
“If there’s an assignment up that I needed to look up at school so that I could prepare for it, I couldn’t,” he said.
Roughly 8,000 support staff at Ontario colleges will return to work Tuesday.
“Today is a win for everyone in the colleges,” said Brian Costantini, president of the College Student Alliance, in a statement.
A tentative agreement was reached between the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and the College Employers Council late Sunday.
Bojan Totic, 23, says he’s glad the Internet will be finally be running.
“The networks are really congested,” said the computer systems technician student.
For the last two weeks, that meant downloading an operating system and waiting up to two hours instead of the normal 30 minutes.
“Students can now go back to school knowing that their college will be fully operational, and the services essential to them will be accessible,” said Costantini.
“The college experience that so many have waited for is finally here.”
The details of the agreement won’t be released until after a ratification, which hasn’t been scheduled.
The CSA represents 15 colleges and 23 member councils with more than 130,000 full-time student members in Ontario.
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http://www.ottawasun.com/2011/09/19/college-support-staff-heading-back-to-work
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