Education major issue for voters in N.S.
The leaders of Nova Scotia’s main opposition parties say they’re getting an earful from voters about education on the provincial campaign trail.
“It’s big,” NDP Leader Gary Burrill said as he campaigned for the May 30 vote.
“It’s not at all uncommon that a person comes to the door ... and they say, ‘I’m glad you’re here. I’m a teacher and we can’t wait to do something about the present government.’ That happens a lot.”
The twin strands of the issue - concerns over conditions in the classroom, and over the Liberal government’s hardline approach with the teachers’ union - have amounted to a perfect political storm for Premier Stephen McNeil.
In mid-February, tensions boiled over as thousands of angry teachers, having rejected three tentative contract deals, staged noisy protests outside the provincial legislature. Inside, scores of others told a legislative committee that violence in the classroom and neglect of special needs students would worsen if the government imposed a collective agreement.
And that’s exactly what the Liberal government did after a one-day teachers strike, the first in the province’s history.
“I’ve had more members of the public talk to me about the testimony that they watched at the committee than almost any other issue,” Progressive Conservative Leader Jamie Baillie said in an interview.
Liette Doucet, president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union, said it’s clear voters are not happy with the way the government has treated the province’s 9,000 public school educators.
However, Doucet said she was pleased the Liberals agreed before the election to set up two committees to provide recommendations on improving classroom conditions and revising the province’s inclusion policy for special needs students.
“We’ve been asking for this for years and years,” she said. “All of a sudden, those things are happening.”
Late last month, the council reviewing classroom conditions recommended the province hire 139 more teachers this September, and it also called for caps on classroom sizes at all junior and senior high schools.
McNeil was quick to accept the council’s 40 recommendations. Two days later, he announced that Nova Scotia voters would be going to the polls.