Dismay, skepticism follows education budget figures
Posted Feb 9, 2011 06:00:41 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Even though the province’s cuts to school board funding were nowhere near the 22 per cent figure floated during the budget-trimming exercise, there’s little happiness about the announced $17.6 million in cuts.
The education minister says losing as many as 400 teachers to attrition in one year won’t hurt the classroom – but Nova Scotia Teachers’ Union president Alexis Allen isn’t buying it.
“I can’t fathom how you can do that,” she said. “I really do not know how that can happen.”
Liberal leader Stephen McNeil agrees on that point.
“That has to impact the classroom,” he said. “There’s just simply no way you could take that many teachers out of the system and not have it affect students.”
The province is saying the cuts come out to 1.65 per cent of the school budgets. School Board Association President Vic Fleury says it’s more when you consider inflationary items and teacher salaries.
“They are going to cut, by my estimation, between $35 million and $40 million out of the operating budgets next year,” he said. “That’s about a four per cent cut.”
PC leader Jamie Baillie has some concerns but says cutting administration is certainly moving in the right direction.
“I am glad we’re focused where we should be,” he said. “I would look to school boards now to make it work so that kids are protected in class.”
The province will be phasing out Reading Recovery, an early literacy program. It’s a copyrighted, proprietary system the province pays $7.1 million for with mixed results, according to the department.
