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Plummeting international enrolment numbers at Saskatchewan Polytechnic have forced the institution to close its bookstores at both the Moose Jaw and Prince Albert campuses.

Sask Polytechnic President Dr. Larry Rosia says policy changes at Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada, such as a new cap on student visas, have been wreaking havoc on post-secondary institution funding for several months.

“Twelve-thousand jobs have been lost in the higher education sector across Canada…If that happened in any other sector, in any other industry, you’d hear about it on the news every day, every newspaper you’d pick up, but no one’s talking about it.”

In the last year, Sask Polytech has laid off 41 employees, including cutting 27 positions in April and 14 in August to save money.

This latest closure will force students to buy their materials and textbooks from the school’s online store, which doesn’t offer everything the physical stores carried. Rosia says the decision wasn’t made lightly, but something had to be sacrificed during these tough times.

“We’ve looked at a number of factors across the institution and the organization, and that was one of the areas that we felt we could take come steps to help us with our sustainability problems.”

He adds that his team is working on finding a solution for students in P.A. and Moose Jaw to ensure their needs are being met.