B.C. adds training spaces to ease teacher shortage

The B.C. government moved Friday to tackle widespread teacher shortage issues by funding more than 100 new training spaces, but the teachers’ union says that does little to provide help immediately needed in classrooms.

B.C. Teachers Federation president Glen Hansman said the shortage has reached the point where some school districts are hiring teachers who don’t have proper certificates and qualified teachers in Vancouver are leaving for plentiful jobs in other communities.

“This week we’ve had stories of a mid-sized school district opening the floodgates to non-certified individuals in ways we haven’t seen before,” he said.

Hansman said the North Okanagan-Shuswap school district in the Salmon Arm and Armstrong areas has been forced to bring in teachers with incomplete training. He said there have always been small numbers of non-certified teachers, in remote areas, but the Salmon Arm area is not considered remote.

Hansman said the union has been in talks with the government about incentives to keep more teachers in the Vancouver area and attract new teachers to the province.

B.C. moved last year to hire 3,500 teachers following a Supreme Court of Canada decision that ruled former Liberal government legislation that stripped teachers of the right to negotiate class sizes and composition involving special-needs students was unconstitutional.

Education Minister Rob Fleming said the government is investing $571,000 to train more than 100 teachers in the highest demand fields such as special education, French, math and physics.

The extra funding comes in response to a group appointed to identify challenges facing school districts across the province. A report by the group determined 54 school districts had difficulty finding and retaining learning assistance teachers, teacher librarians, counsellors, and science, math and French teachers.