Sask. NDP promise to 'swing for the fences' for education with $2B funding announcement

The Saskatchewan NDP continues to roll out their pre-election campaign platform and on Tuesday leader Carla Beck promised an extra $2 billion for education.

The Saskatchewan NDP continues to roll out their pre-election campaign platform and on Tuesday leader Carla Beck promised an extra $2 billion for education.

Beck said the money would go to reducing class sizes through hiring more teachers and support workers.

She stood outside a Saskatoon school, flanked by teachers and parents, as she promised to increase classroom funding by $2 billion over four years.

“We’ll ensure that we have more teachers and educational assistants are hired so that kids have the supports and attention that they need,” Beck said.

Figures from the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF) suggest that Saskatchewan is trailing in education funding per student. The national average is just over $15,000 annually. In the west, Manitoba exceeds that average while Saskatchewan trails all provinces at $11,343 per student.

“Classrooms are way over packed, I mean they’re full and teachers are stretched to the max,” President of CUPE Saskatchewan Kent Pederson said. “There aren’t enough EAs for schools so that students have the actual supports and resources they need to learn. That is a problem. That is a broken school.”

The Saskatchewan Party disagrees. In a written statement it said: