CCPA Policy Note

Entries Tagged as 'Education'

Something missing from the H1N1 fight

October 2nd, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · 1 Comment · Education, Health care

When the government announced its plans for dealing with H1N1 in schools on August 24th there was something missing.
The government’s “pandemic response framework”, announced by the Ministers of Education and Healthy Living and sport deals with issues like transporting the sick, communications, roles of emergency response teams, school instruction and post-pandemic recovery plans.
What was missing?  [...]

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The recent secretive, haphazard spending cuts should be repealed

September 23rd, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · No Comments · Children & youth, Economy, Education, Provincial budget & finance, Transparency & accountability, Women

Almost daily we wake up to news of yet another important program or initiative whose funding has been cut by the BC government. Literacy initiatives, high school sports, programs that protect women and children from violence, arts and culture: hardly an area of social service provision has been spared.
These cuts have been devastating to many [...]

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What should our government be spending money on?

September 16th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · No Comments · Economy, Education, Environment, resources & sustainability, Provincial budget & finance, Taxes

One question that is missing from the public debate on deficits and debt is whether we’re getting the best bang for the stimulus buck. Even if we accept that it’s appropriate for governments to borrow and engage in deficit-financing during a recession, as I have argued here, we need to have a discussion about the [...]

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And from the department of kicking kittens……

September 10th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · 2 Comments · Children & youth, Education, Provincial budget & finance

Vaughn Palmer asked the Finance Minister a question in the Budget lock-up on the day of the Budget speech.  How about a list of all those programs you’re going to cut?  No can do, Finance Minister Colin Hansen replied.  You’ll just have to wait until the Public Accounts are published next year.
In the Liberal government’s [...]

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On tough times and priorities

September 10th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · 2 Comments · Children & youth, Education, Provincial budget & finance

The BC government cannot afford $130,000 for the budget of BC School Sports, a volunteer organization which organizes sporting events for students. This is likely to affect 100,000 high school athletes across the province whose meets and competitions will be canceled. “It’s not business as usual right now,” explained Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid, quoted in [...]

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Doing the math on all-day-K

September 8th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · No Comments · Education, Provincial budget & finance

Amid the corner-cutting exercise that was the September BC budget, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope: actual money was alloted for the expansion of kindergarten to full day. Could it be that the BC government has finally started to get it and is planning to heed its own report on childcare (as I’ve [...]

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Why young children's education and care are not priorities in this election

May 7th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · No Comments · BC Election 2009, Children & youth, Economy, Education, Women

It seems clear that policy-makers in this province (and country, for that matter) are not prepared to invest in a quality early education and childcare system, despite the proven benefits for children. The reasons have got to be political, as the economic case for investing in early childhood education and care has already been made [...]

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School funding an election issue at the local level

April 30th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · No Comments · BC Election 2009, Children & youth, Education

It hasn’t particularly reached the level of a provincial election issue, but school funding is quietly percolating along as an issue at the local level.
The provincial election overlaps with the time that school boards set their budgets and many of those school boards are making cuts due to lack of funding.
A few examples? In [...]

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Children's mental health: Are we paying attention?

February 11th, 2009 · Adrienne Montani · No Comments · BC Election 2009, Children & youth, Education, Health care, Poverty, inequality & welfare

According to the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD), 15% or about 1 in 7 children in BC suffer from a mental health problem serious enough to cause significant distress and impair their development and functioning.   In children, mental illness supersedes all other health problems in terms of the numbers affected and the degreee of impairment.  Think about [...]

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School ranking: public shaming with a statistical veneer

February 9th, 2009 · Adrienne Montani · 1 Comment · BC Election 2009, Children & youth, Education

By printing the Fraser Institute rankings of elementary schools the Vancouver Sun gives unwarranted attention and a gloss of respectability to a cynical attempt to create anxiety among parents and educators through public shaming of students, families, educators and to place public schools in a negative light. The FI’s ranking calculation is [...]

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