NDP, Sask. Party spar over education funding

Education funding was the main topic of discussion at Question Period on Tuesday at the Saskatchewan Legislature.

Earlier in the day on the steps of the Legislature, the NDP and Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) voiced their concerns regarding the lack of education funding in the provincial budget.

This past spring’s budget saw an additional $1.8 million given to 27 school divisions to cover what the government called “additional substitute teacher and other school-based employee costs.”

That also includes educational assistants (EAs).

Rob Westfield, the chair for education with CUPE Saskatchewan, feels the lack of additional funding for schools announced in the recent budget will hurt students in the long run.

“Earlier this year, the government rolled out its ‘back on track budget,’ ” he said. “It is a disastrous budget and a blatant attack on education.

“The latest education budget does not come close to covering the basic operating costs that school divisions must budget for and students will have to pay the price again.”

Westfield added the lack of new funding is contributing to larger class sizes, less individual attention to students and lower quality experience for families.

The NDP and CUPE say school boards also are facing a 4.7 per cent increase in costs because of inflation.

“Instead of meaningfully investing in their essential work, we’re seeing staff-to-student ratios climbing while per-student funding is plummeting in this province,” said NDP MLA Matt Love.

“We’ve seen a budget that fails to invest in the needs of our kids, especially now when those needs are increasing after two years of pandemic learning.”

In an email later in the day, the government said the average class size proxy is 19.1 in the 2021-22 school year, which is down slightly from pre-pandemic levels in ’19-20 when it was 19.2.

One EA spoke at the event about how her career and division has taken a hit.

“While this government states it has improved increased funding to the division, it’s all smoke and mirrors,” she said. “While my specific division has received a 0.83 (per cent) increase, the cost of fuel, wage increases and cost of inflation has raised 33 per cent.

“Over the years, my schedule has been cut from having hours per week to spend with a student to sometimes now only having minutes per week to accomplish those same goals. The cuts to education are seriously impacting students.”

Education Minister Dustin Duncan said the government has committed funding to help divisions hire more EAs to help students catch up.

“We know that EAs are an important part in the classroom,” Duncan said. “We’re putting in more supports to students through additional EAs and it’s my expectation that school divisions would be on board with that.”

Duncan added the government could also look into potentially distributing more money to the education system if other sectors of the economy continue to do well.

“If there’s an opportunity for the province (to commit more money) through increased revenue, that’s certainly something the ministry would look at,” he said.

Duncan mentioned so far, no school divisions have submitted their budget plans for the next school year, but did say it is still early for the ministry to be receiving submissions.