Student award axed
Kyra Wittkopf shows the letter she received earlier this month informing her that the Premier’s Award of Excellence had been cancelled.
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Updated: August 19, 2009 11:25 AM
When Kyra Wittkopf learned earlier this month that the Premier’s Excellence Award program had been cancelled, she was devastated.
Wittkopf, a Summerland Secondary School graduate, had applied in spring and had been on the short list for the $15,000 award.
“Hearing the program is actually cancelled is much worse than hearing you didn’t get the award,” she said. “I had high hopes for this.”
When Wittkopf applied for the award, she had to send an application showing her grades and extracurricular activities as well as a 300-word essay on what she thought was the most important invention of the 20th century.
Her essay was on the Internet and how it has changed society in a short time.
It was through the Internet that Wittkopf connected with others who were on the short list for the award. A group on Facebook and an online forum had been formed for the applicants, who share in the disappointment.
Wittkopf and others were supposed to hear in June if they had received the awards. When she had not heard by graduation, she assumed she had not won.
“I think it’s rather inconsiderate to those who applied,” Wittkopf said.
The letter, dated July 31, arrived in early August and informed her the award program had been cut.
“Due to the current economic downturn, government has had to make some difficult decisions with respect to the programs it offers,” the letter said. “I regret to advise you that the Premier’s Excellence Award program is no longer available. As a result, your application will not be processed.”
Wittkopf will attend Simon Fraser University this fall where she will study communications. She has received a $24,000 scholarship from the university, to be spread over the four years.
The scholarship alone, while significant, will not cover all the costs of her education.
“It definitely would have been a fantastic help to have that extra scholarship,” Wittkopf said of the awards program.
Tuition alone is between $6,000 and $7,000 a year and when the costs of residence and meals are factored in, the annual amount is closer to $10,000 a year.
Wittkopf wonders why the province had to eliminate the award program.
“When they’re cutting millions of dollars, the amount of money they’re giving out here is small,” she said. “They could have found that little chunk of money somewhere else.”
Her mother, Angela Hook, is also disappointed with the cut and the way the information was relayed.
“They owed the kids more of an explanation,” she said.
Moira Stilwell, Minister of Advanced Education and Labour Market Development, said the recession is the reason behind the program cut.
“The reductions were from relatively smaller-dollar programs because we wanted to keep the impact on students as minimal as possible.
Through these changes, our focus has been to maintain core services for students with financial barriers to getting an education, and we’ve done that. The Premier’s Awards program was not a program based on financial need.”
The program, which was introduced in 1986, provided 16 scholarships, worth a total of $240,000. There were 185 applications this year.
Stilwell said the province continues to maintain more than $17 million a year in scholarships.
Student loans worth more than $200 million a year are also available and the province provides more than $100 million a year for core student financial assistance programs, Stilwell said.
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