Funding To Help Recruit Teachers In Rural Areas

Friday, July 11, 2008 01:19 PM

Prince George - Students in rural and remote school districts will benefit from a new agreement that will help districts recruit and retain teachers.

Minister of Education, Shirley Bond is hoping teachers will stay after they find a placement “There is an agreement in place that will give additional school districts the tools they need to recruit teachers to serve in rural and remote communities and make permanent homes there.

Boards of education will receive $3.5 million annually to help attract and retain teachers in remote communities. Teachers who qualify for this allowance will receive a $2,200 yearly allowance and up to three percent on the salary grid.

The BC Public School Employers Association (BCPSEA) and the BC Teachers' Federation (BCTF) have reached an agreement on how to disburse the Remote Recruitment and Retention Allowance designed to attract teachers to rural communities and retain teachers in those communities. As part of the 2006 labour negotiations between BCPSEA and BCTF, funding was set aside to address recruitment and retention of teachers in rural and remote communities. This allowance has now been expanded to include more communities.

The Public Education Recruitment and Retention Support Committee, made up of representatives from BCPSEA and BCTF, established eligibility criteria based on the size of the community, distance from major centres and medical care facilities, and whether accessibility is limited to ferry, airplane or train.

The fund is being administered by the Public Education Recruitment and Retention Support Committee. The committee established eligibility and designated the specific schools and school districts to receive the allowance beyond districts already specified in a 2006 framework agreement. School districts were invited to submit requests for eligibility to the Public Education Recruitment and Retention Support Committee.

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Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 01:19 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: darkken on July 11 2008 8:45 PM

A nice idea which will hopefully lead to some schools getting teachers.

Unfortuately, they did a survey of the UBC School of Education a few years ago asking new teachers where they were teaching. 90% said they would not teach in a rural setting, much like doctors, lawyers, etc they want to be where the action, innovation are.

Posted by: vintage35 on July 12 2008 11:41 PM

Unfortunately times change. Society puts no emphasis on obtaining experience where ever it may be available!
Looking back to the fifties(!) teachers looked to where the jobs were.
In 1955 I graduated from the Victoria Normal School and put out applications in probably all the then school districts. At that time when the BCTF met for their annual convention in the spring in Vancouver there was a room set aside for 'those beyond Hope'.
I spent my first three years after graduation in the Northwest part of the province. Following that experience I accepted a job east of the mountains in the Peace River country where I presently reside.
Prior to spending 4 years in Victoria I had lived my whole life 10 miles outside London England!
My experience in Canada is that the more rurally populated areas in BC are the best and having watched over the years as areas have developed people have stayed longer than they intended. When I came to the Peace country in 1958 I planned to stay 3 years. I am still here! and if young people wanting to establish themselves today look beyond the 'factory' schools came north they would stay.
Today everything 'Beyond Hope' is vibrant and is the better part of 'Beautiful BC' bar none.

Posted by: tinyapplecork on July 13 2008 12:18 PM

Whatever happened to the days when a teacher taught for the pure joy of instilling an education in a young mind? Now we have to dangle financial carrots?! Wow! Can't they priorize the available postings?

Posted by: lost it all on July 13 2008 2:51 PM

Just because a person may enjoy ones job does not mean that would be the sole reason for doing it. I am not a teacher I do however enjoy my job, the finanial carrots that are dangled in front of me are very important. I cannot see how that would not be any different had I pursued a job in the teaching profession. If anyone has a job where the financial carrots are not nessary because the pure joy of the job is payment enough please post.

Posted by: tinyapplecork on July 13 2008 5:04 PM

I call it geographic discrimination. I am all for pay equity. It seems to me this has nothing really to do with retention, just paying out teachers who don't have a highway leaving their community!

"The Public Education Recruitment and Retention Support Committee, made up of representatives from BCPSEA and BCTF, established eligibility criteria based on the size of the community, distance from major centres and medical care facilities, and whether accessibility is limited to ferry, airplane or train."

Posted by: lost it all on July 13 2008 7:31 PM

Call it what you want, it is simply a case of supply and demand. If the supply is not there to meet the demand economics become an equalizer in order to meet the demand. And because this is in the civil service it is an issue, private industry works under the same pressures.