BC Education Minister Rob Fleming admitted there is still a significant teacher shortage in the province but says a lot of work is being done behind the scenes to fill those gaps.
Fleming states BC continues to graduate 1,500 new teachers annually from post-secondary schools across the province and since last July, just under 2-thousand new teachers have been certified.
However, Fleming acknowledged the shortage in PG and across the north where the hiring of uncertified teachers is on the rise.
“There is a shortage in particular for specialist teachers, there are some districts in Northern British Columbia and elsewhere that are challenged, we struck a recruitment retention taskforce with the BC Teachers Federation and have so far, implemented five out of the six recommendations.”
Fleming adds out of province applications are up 80% over the last decade.
He hinted the possibility of seeing more out-of-province teachers moving to BC could be one way to fix the problem.
“Out of province teachers who are facing layoffs and redundancies in the thousands in provinces like Alberta and Ontario are looking at British Columbia as a place to resume or to start a new teaching career. Out of province applications are up 80% from where they were ten years ago, so there is momentum building.”
More locally, the funding request by School District 57 to improve DP Todd Secondary is still being considered by the Ministry of Education.
The upgrades are even more crucial as SD 57 approved catchment area changes last fall where students from Spruceland and Edgewood elementary schools will attend DP Todd instead of Duchess Park.
The lone exception is any students who have siblings currently attending Duchess Park can join them.
Fleming states the request is still being considered and he also praised the work being done on the new Kelly Road Secondary.
“This was identified to us about six months ago and we’re very, very happy to see that the new Kelly Road Secondary School is proceeding and I am looking forward to the opening date. I was up there as a minister in 2017 to help re-open Springwood Elementary.”
Fleming remains optimistic a new contract can be reached between the BC Teachers Federation and the Public School’s Employers Association as talks are set to resume later this month.