Sask. NDP says number of educators hasn't kept up with student population growth
Student enrolment increased by 15,594 since 2020, while 'school-based' educators fell by 24: documents
The Saskatchewan NDP is criticizing the provincial government for allowing the number of educators in the province to fall while student numbers have shot up.
On Tuesday, the NDP released documents, obtained through a freedom of information request, detailing the most recent staffing report for the province's education sector. The report shows that — including distance learning teachers — there are about 24 fewer educators today than there were in 2020, while student enrolment has increased by 15,594 during the same period.
NDP leader Carla Beck said on Tuesday that those numbers are unacceptable.
"This has been a decade long — longer than a decade long — slide when it comes to the under-funding of education," Beck said.
"This Sask. Party government, after 17 years, has simply failed to keep up with the pace of student growth and inflation, and the quality of education that our kids are receiving has suffered."
The provincial government said in a statement that it spends the most per-capita for students among provinces.
It also said the average class size and student-to-educator ratio were the same in 2024 as the previous year.
The province said it's committed to getting "back to basics with a renewed focus on education."
According to the documents released by the NDP, some school-based educator roles slightly increased — like EAL (English as an additional language) staff going to 149 in 2024 from about 126 positions in 2020 — there were large drops in teacher librarians, going to 21 from about 64, and distance learning teachers, to 126 from 326.
Overall, the total of school-based assignments (which includes distance learning) dropped to 12,004 from about 12,028.
On CBC's The 306 radio show, Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation president Samantha Becotte said she wants to see more education funding in upcoming budgets.
"Kids today aren't getting the same experience as what we did when we were back in public schools," said Becotte on Tuesday.
"This is a generation of kids that are seeing fewer supports within their classrooms."
Becotte also said school division budgets haven't kept pace with enrolment growth and inflation.
"They don't have what they need to continue to deliver the level of services that they have in previous years and so it leaves school divisions with hard decisions," Becotte said. "Rather than looking at where can we allocate additional resources, a lot of the time it's, 'where can we cut from where it's going to have the least impact on classrooms?'"
With files from The 306