Funding boost for adult education evokes emotional response

Tears of joy were shed on Tuesday as mature students, teachers and government leaders gathered to celebrate a multimillion-dollar boost for adult education in Manitoba.

The 2026-27 budget earmarks $24.9 million to help adults with interrupted schooling upskill and complete their Grade 12 or equivalency education.

It includes $2.5 million in new funding — 10 times the top-up announced in the last budget.

Advanced Education and Training Minister Renée Cable called Manitoba’s adult learning centres and literacy programs “a forgotten piece of the puzzle.”

Kindergarten-to-Grade 12 and post-secondary institutions have long overshadowed these key programs, Cable said.

“We need to make sure that, where K to 12 hasn’t been as successful as it ought to have been — maybe it wasn’t a safe place like this for students to learn… there is a net,” the minister told a news conference inside Urban Circle Training Centre.

Roughly 50 people, including the founder of the 36-year-old centre, attended the event.

Nevada Kirkness was among a handful of speakers who shared remarks, following an opening prayer and performance by Sweetgrass Women drum group.

Kirkness, 33, will graduate from Urban Circle as a valedictorian next month, nearly two decades after she dropped out of Grade 9.

“Many students come here after facing challenges in their lives and sometimes, after feeling like education was not built for them,” she said.

“At Urban Circle, we are reminded that it’s never too late to learn, to grow or to build a better future.”

Kirkness spoke at length about how students succeed when they can study in a culturally safe environment that prioritizes academics and land-based learning.

Urban Circle began as a 10-student operation in 1990 and now welcomes 150 to 200 students annually for a range of education programs.

Urban Circle is receiving $477,986 for adult education in 2026-27.

Executive director Haven Stumpf said a top-up will allow the school to transport more students to participate in medicine-picking and other activities.

“We’re planning on creating an extra cohort for adult education to allow more students to be able to be trained with their Grade 12 and to get them ready for employment or further education,” Stumpf said.

She handed Cable several gifts, including a painting, on Tuesday in recognition of the minister’s support for adult education and advocacy inside the Manitoba legislature.

Local artist Christina McKay, an Urban Circle student, depicted the Métis minister as a buffalo gathering medicine.

Tears welled in the minister’s eyes as she accepted it.

It was also an emotional event for anti-poverty advocate Jim Silver, one of the most vocal supporters of adult education in Manitoba.

Silver has published multiple reports on the positive impacts of alternative schools serving mature students, adult newcomers and others who didn’t graduate Grade 12 as teenagers.

Last month, he published a book titled The Transformative Power of Adult Education.

Silver said he was elated about the $2.5-million injection.

He noted his research on basic adult education suggests this sum will “pay for itself” in a decade, given these programs help students get off social assistance and secure jobs that require they pay income taxes.

A total of $1 million of the funding is being designated to support First Nations and northern communities.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca