Dirk Meissner, The Tyee, April 18, 2013– …[NDP Leader Adrian Dix] said his plans to improve public education in B.C. involve spending $372 million over three years.
“If you look at what’s happened over the last 10 years, education has unfortunately been a battleground, and kids have suffered, and so we have to change that and that’s what this plan seeks to do,” he said.
Dix said the NDP plans to spend $265 million to hire new teachers, counsellors, education assistants and librarians. He said the money could be used to hire up to 1,000 specialized classroom assistants.
He told a crowd of parents and children who were at his announcement that years of Liberal cuts and confrontation has left British Columbia with too many overcrowded classrooms.
The New Democrats say another $300 million that is sitting in the bank from the current Liberal government’s RESP fund will be set aside for use in other issues involving children, including early learning and childcare.
BC Teachers Federation president-elect Jim Iker said the NDP education funding announcement is a good start.
“We have a political party that recognizes the need for improved supports for our students as well as recognize what’s happened in the last decade with the underfunding and the cuts not only to classroom teachers but our specialist teachers.”
Read More: The Tyee
Yolande Cole, The Georgia Straight, April 17, 2013– THE B.C. LIBERALS’ promises on childcare won’t make much of a dent in the shortage of spaces, according to Sharon Gregson.
Read More: The Georgia Straight
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