Opinion
“It is not a delay. This isn’t a pause. It is a continuation [of consultation work] …. We simply should not make this error, as a result of it’s fairly large.
— Schooling Minister Wayne Ewasko
Just a few months in the past, Minister of Schooling Wayne Ewasko was quoted on this newspaper as stating that his authorities has supplied the schooling sector with the most important enhance in funding it has ever obtained, noting that the province elevated funding of kindergarten by means of Grade 12 by $460 million for 2022-2022 colleges. 23 years.
That features a $51 million enhance in annual working funds and $77 million to assist cope with monetary pressures for the college’s division.
As we reported, an extra $22 million was supplied to strengthen scholar studying and help and $2 million to increase the Elders and Custodians of Information initiative in Colleges.
Whereas Brandon Colleges Division board chair Linda Ross agrees that is true, she has additionally publicly educated ministers and her math abilities by stating that whereas the elevated funding is necessary, it’s not the place wanted.
“Nevertheless, the quantity of the rise doesn’t cowl the price of inflation,” mentioned Ross. “So, in a way, we’re on the decline.”
And now, towards the top of December, the post-holiday price range season is quick approaching, and faculty divisions throughout the province could also be questioning what they will count on from provincial funding. That query was answered this week, when the minister instructed our sister newspaper that public and impartial colleges can count on establishment funding bulletins for 2023-2024 operations within the new yr.
In November 2021, the province introduced the formation of a overview crew tasked with implementing a brand new funding components for Manitoba’s 37 divisions of public colleges in an effort to make it extra equitable.
On the time, the president of the Manitoba Affiliation of College Boards, Alan Campbell, welcomed what he referred to as a “late” overview, however mentioned the board had fast fiscal issues. There are questions on how the annual funding will address hovering gasoline costs and inflation at a time when the province is touting abolishing the schooling property tax.
These questions should go unanswered as we transfer into 2023, and it is a disgrace that, as Ewasko mentioned, members of the overview crew wished extra time to get it proper. It additionally permits new trustees some additional time to acclimate to their duties across the college board desk earlier than taking up new funding preparations.
It might be too simple right here to level to this delay as one more instance of the prolonged examine course of undertaken by a authorities that seems to be hooked on consulting critiques and studies. Learning an issue to dying is one option to make it seem your authorities is doing one thing to repair the issue, even when the report is finally shelved.
And naturally the postponement of the overview crew doesn’t resolve the power and elementary issues going through schooling funding on this province. It kicks the can once more, this time to some level after the following provincial election in October 2023.
However to be truthful to the minister, he was proper when he said that the Manitobans can’t afford to pay our authorities to get the schooling fund components improper.
As we now have mentioned earlier on this web page, it could be useful for provinces to take the time to review the problem of schooling funding first, after which make the mandatory adjustments, earlier than deciding to start phasing out the schooling property tax.
The failure to adequately fund the college division has undermined schooling in our province, and it’s important for our authorities to satisfy that want within the coming college yr. The pandemic has had a devastating influence on college students throughout the nation, with sharp declines in studying and math charges for a lot of college students, particularly on the major college age stage.
We urge the province to contemplate this as price range planning strikes ahead for the following educational yr, at the same time as new funding processes are being developed.
The one drawback, in fact, is that if a brand new authorities emerges from the following provincial election, we are able to count on additional delays to find an answer as schooling funding is as soon as once more undervalued.
