The BC Teachers Federation (BCTF) said it is drawing attention to the fact that there will likely be a shortage of staff this school year. “[COVID-19] it has exacerbated many pre-existing conditions,” BCTF President Clint Johnston told CBC’s On the Coast. “The lack of teachers in BC it has been growing for some time and we are not producing enough teachers in the province for us.” He said inflation and the rising cost of living are contributing to the teacher shortage in B.C “In BC, teacher salaries are the second lowest in Canada, the cost of living also ranges from very high to almost unaffordable in Metro Vancouver,” Johnston said. “Those are the combination of factors that don’t attract people from other jurisdictions to come here and work here.”
Conservation challenges
The union’s most recent collective bargaining agreement expired this summer, Johnston said, but the union is negotiating with the province and is not considering a strike as an option at this time. He said with many teachers retiring or making a career change during the pandemic, school districts are facing retention issues. “We know that students thrive when they have the right supports to help them achieve their best, and when you have to pull people and move them around, they don’t get it,” Johnston said. Students arrive at Chaffey-Burke Elementary School on the first day of the new school year in Burnaby, BC in 2021. BCTF President Clint Johnston said some school districts are looking to hire uncertified teachers to ease staff shortages. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC) In addition to better wages, Johnston said the union is also fighting for smaller class sizes and better working conditions. He said the staffing shortage is so dire right now, one district in the province has opted to seek uncertified teachers. “You’re going to see people teaching without certification, and that’s really concerning when the year hasn’t even started, because that’s not what K-12 public school kids deserve.”
Teacher shortages across the country
COVID-19 has been an exasperating factor for staff shortages across the country. New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec faced challenges in recruiting enough people to work in the classrooms. In BC, some schools had to close temporarily due to staff absences earlier this year. In mid-August, the Ministry of Education acknowledged the shortage as a problem. “We know that some long-standing pressures continue to fill posts in rural and remote areas, as well as for [substitute, on-call teachers] and special roles,” a spokesman for the Department of Education and Child Care said in a statement, which also described efforts in recent years to address the shortages. These include adding places to educational programs, working to boost the number of indigenous and francophone teachers, the strategy for rural areas, new blended learning program at the University of British Columbia and updates on the certification of internationally qualified teachers and the turnaround time for teacher certifications overall. Allyson Jule, president of the Association of the BC Deans of Education and executive officer of the Association of Canadian Deans of Education, said with lower wages in BC for teachers and a higher cost of living, it may be less attractive for new teacher graduates to stay in the province. CBC News reached out to the Ministry of Education and Child Care for comment on what the ministry is doing to support districts still in need of teachers, but they did not respond by press time.
