Apparently, our current provincial government can no longer afford to pay the cost of a decent education for our kindergarten to 12 students.
Education Minister Peter Fassbender has revealed that the Liberal government will appeal a B.C. Supreme Court ruling that the Liberal government violated teachers’ rights when it stripped them of specific bargaining provisions in 2002.
The rationale, according to Fassbender, is that the government’s responsibility is to balance the interests of B.C. teachers against the best interests of students, their families, and the 4.6 million British Columbians.
As a veteran of the teaching profession and a continuous fighter for quality education for my own children and the students I teach, I confess the past 10 years of unwarranted hatred and acrimony of teachers by the Ministry of Education have begun to wear me down.
Of all of the people to turn the wrath of government upon it would seem teachers and our education system are the easiest targets for political bullying.
If they strike…legislate them back to work and withhold their strike pay.
If they fight for and win the legitimate right to negotiate class size and composition, pass legislation to strip it out of an already existing contract.
If a Supreme Court decision upholds a ruling that the government has violated teachers’ rights and demands and those rights must be reinstated, flaunt the ruling and appeal.
I am tired of trying to convince politicians of the value of education. How many times must public citizens cry out that the education system is horribly underfunded?
Maybe it is time to re-evaluate budgetary priorities, stop wasting tax dollars on already lost court battles and pony up real funding for a badly beaten-up education system.
Minister Fassbender, if you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
Brent Applegath
Vernon
