No money to pay for new schools
Posted February 22, 2012 7:41 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – It happens too often: new houses go up, families move in and there aren’t enough schools for your kids to go to.
School districts are dealing with overcrowding and the BC government isn’t providing a lot of new funding to build schools. A UBC professor says the problem is a lack of communication between municipalities and the province.
“These communities are, in part, created by long-planned policies on a municipal level that need to connect up to how the province, and in particular the Minister of Education, decides to build schools,” argues Adjunct Planning Professor Andy Yan.
“Schools are caught between two systems. You’re in a gear change as these developments occur, families move in and the school systems are trying to catch up to these new populations and where they’re located.”
Yan is calling for a more integrated approach to planning which would include discussions from both levels of government and developers.
In the 2012-2013 provincial budget, the government says education is not getting any more money. BC is also looking for the post-secondary sector to cut its budgets by $70 million between 2013 and 2015.
