Strike Won’t Damage Public Education – Professor
Prince George, B.C. – The teachers strike may be inconveniencing students and parents but it’s unlikely to cause any long term damage to the public education system.
Professor Andrew Kitchenham – photo courtesy UNBC
That from Professor Andrew Kitchenham, Chair of UNBC’s School of Education.
“I don’t think it’s damaging to public education, I think it’s really demonstrating the idea of collective bargaining.”
In fact looking back the last few decades, he says strikes are nothing new.
“Historically when we didn’t have provincial bargaining and had bargaining happening between school boards and local teachers unions, this happened quite often and students weren’t drastically affected.”
In addition, Kitchenham says universities accommodated students who missed the end of last June and, “will probably do it again now.”
He says one issue that has changed the tone of bargaining this time has been the need for specialized teachers.
“We’ve had the inclusion movement since the late 1980’s but now teachers are having a hard time accommodating so many students with exceptionalities in the same classroom – that’s a huge issue right now for teachers and it’s just come to a head.”
Looking ahead, Kitchenham says the recent spike in independent school registration is no cause for concern either.
“Parents are mostly sending their kids there because of knee-jerk reactions. They’re worrying about the strike going on and children not being able to get enough education.”
And Kitchenham says cooler heads will inevitably prevail.
“I’m optimistic that the teachers will be back and the students will not be gravely affected and it will be resolved in the next few weeks if not sooner. Parents need to understand teachers have a pretty good idea how they can accelerate and make-up for time lost.”
Comments
The BC public school system is on of the best in Canada. This is in spite of what Christy Clark wants to do to it, destroy it and sen all to private schools, causing an increase in costs for parents. She doesn’t care for the public education system and she hates teachers.
The book titles in the photo are mirror images by error. Speaking of mirror what is the mirror view on the current ongoing negotiations between UNBC and its faculty union? Here are some highlights:
[] UNBC new proposal would abolish the Senate-driven program redundancy process that has been in place at UNBC since 1998, and replace it by giving the Provost the authority, unilaterally, to declare an academic program to be redundant, and by giving the Provost the ultimate power in the case of program redundancy or restructuring, to decide which tenured members in that program to terminate.
Apparently UNBC provost abdicated. Exiled, terminated or became redundant?
More layouts coming?
[] In terms of teaching workload, the Employer [UNBC] seeks to increase the maximum teaching workload of teaching members: Increase to 21-27 semester contact hours from 15-18.
This is like going from teaching 3 course per semester to 4 courses. Overload light is flashing.
[] The Employer also wishes to introduce evaluation procedures that would make UNBC an extreme outlier in the university landscape in Canada.
UNBC is already extreme. How extreme it can get?
Darker than black?
[] The University management proposal further contains no reference to any rights of appeal on negative tenure or promotion decisions, rights that are clearly stated in nearly all other Canadian Faculty agreements. Neither
would the President be required to provide any explanation for rejecting an application.
Who needs explanation?
I mean this paragraph is self explanatory.
[] Is UNBC sleepwalking into a strike?
What prof Andrew Kitchenham and other experts think?
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