Toronto, April 11, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) says the education cuts contained in the provincial budget will have severe and lasting impacts.
“We are most certainly looking at increases in class sizes and the loss of specialized programs and supports. When we should be making investments to ensure all students are able to reach their full potential, the government’s cuts will result in more students falling through the cracks,” says Liz Stuart, President of OECTA.
“We have seen and lived this scenario before and we know that our schools cannot do more with less,” says Stuart. “Our publicly funded education system has made great strides over the past two decades, and this regressive budget is going to move us backward.”
With this budget, core funding for elementary and secondary school programming will be eroded over the next four years, as funding will fail to keep pace with inflation. We estimate this will result in hundreds of millions of dollars in underfunding, which will worsen pressure on the classroom. “This government is creating a crisis,” adds Stuart.
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OECTA represents the 45,000 passionate and qualified teachers in Ontario’s publicly funded English Catholic schools, from Kindergarten to Grade 12.