Today (Friday) the Provincial Government announced its intention to abandon a new education funding model which was referred to as a ‘prevalence model’.
“We consider the funding announcement good news,” said Joanne Hapke, President of PG District Teachers Association
Educators throughout the province were critical of the proposed change, and in an official release the BC government said they hope to “expand priority funding to children with mental health challenges and those living in low-income families.”
Indigenous students will also receive priority funding.
Hapke explained that the new model would have assigned funding based on “an averaging system instead of looking at what the actual needs are in each district,” explaining that she believed it would hurt individual regions by establishing a system of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ when distributing funding.
“I would not say what we have now is ideal… but if you were to put our current system in front of us and prevalence, we would take what we have,” Hapke noted.
She concluded that the decision is an example of teachers’ concerns being heard by the Province, a positive sign as bargaining talks continue.
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