Teacher Shortage Good News For Post-Secondary Students

PRINCE GEORGE- The NDP government announced its first budget in 16 years last week and one of the focuses was education. “We are hiring more teachers in this budget, to bring our total to over 3700 new hires across this province since September,” said Finance Minister Carole James.

With nine post-secondary institutions in BC offering education programs, it may take awhile to supply that demand as the province is already in a teacher shortage. “We can keep up with the demand, it’s just going to be this little hiccup,” said UNBC School of Education Chair, Andrew Kitchenham,” in the program we take 30 for elementary and 30 for secondary.”

The new hires will help offset the growing shortage of teachers on-call in the province. Many school districts, including 59 and 57, are hiring substitute teachers that don’t have teaching certification. “It’s been common practice for many years in Mackenzie, because we can’t get enough trained teachers into that community to have enough TTOCs to support teachers when they’re ill or on professional development,” said Prince George Teachers Association President, Joanne Hapke. Hapke added that School District 57 has hired student teachers in the past to fill teacher on-call positions.

Government’s commitment means the future looks bright for students. “Our job prospects are always fantastic, we’re well into the 90s for our students getting jobs within six months of graduating. Our students have just started their final practicums and already two of them have job offers and they’re not even finished yet. There are so many school districts that really want to hire teachers,” added Kitchenham.