The budgetary approach favoured by the current government centres on an explicit targeting of new monies to a small set of defined needs like contract costs and monies for more students. Yet our schools are complex and expansive institutions that face inflationary pressure affecting not just wages and salaries but benefit costs, and those related to learning materials, utilities, specialized services, professional development, recruitment, transportation, IT and a host of other factors. While the annual Funding Allocation System is intended to capture these demands when budgetary allocations are set, there has not been a clear or consistent recognition of budgetary pressures in these areas and how they impinge upon school system mandates in the instructional arena.
Read our analysis of the education funding in Budget 2024 here.
Education is on the verge of a similar crisis. The teacher shortage is reaching crisis proportions, universities are crumbling, and provincial governments are treating educators as if they are the problem rather than partners in revitalization. Investment in K-12 education in BC is at historic lows, just 1.6% of GDP in 2019, half what it was in 1982. This panel will bring together senior leaders in the education sector to discuss the looming crisis facing our sector, as well as help us begin to explore what our hopes and dreams for a revitalized education sector could look like.”
“As schools look toward post-pandemic recovery, teacher unions and researchers are at a crucial junction in the defense
This technical report summarizes how education funding is structured and distributed in each of the Canadian provinces. Political and social factors influencing public education and how it is funded include neo-liberal ideology, competition with other public services, and the impact of public school advocates. Education is the responsibility of provinces in Canada and the details of how funding is distributed vary according to province. However, there are some common questions and increasingly common patterns in the funding models. Equity is a central intention built into Canadian funding models, although the approaches are subject to contestation. Funding decisions have been increasingly centralized in provincial governments and away from school boards, with boards being eliminated in some provinces. Property taxes are becoming a decreasing source of funding, with provincial revenue from other taxation making up a greater proportion.
Public funding for private schools may be the most obvious way public education in British Columbia is being privatized, but there are other less obvious privatizing strategies at work. This is a working paper for an IPE/BC workshop that offers analysis of 1) the common narratives that legitimize and promote privatization thus drawing the public into a manufactured consent of privatization and 2) specific contexts in which this privatization in manifest, such as personalized learning (especially with technology), choice programs, school fees and fund raising, business principles of school administration, corporate sponsorships, fee paying international student enrollment, and publicly funded private schools.