BC teachers say public education is being overlooked in the provincial election campaign

A group of rank-and-file teachers is warning that public education has been sorely missing from BC’s provincial election. 

RECESS, the teacher-led campaign, is asking candidates to pledge to “support the redirection of public funding to public schools,” as provincial funding for private schools continues to increase. 

Tara Ehrcke, a member of RECESS, said the group is working with the Coalition for Public Education to bring the issue of public education back into the conversation during the campaign.

“I’ve been a teacher for 20 years. I teach high school math in Greater Victoria, and it has been disappointing, I’d say, that there hasn’t been more discussion around education and education funding and schools,” Ehrcke told PressProgress.

Ehrcke said that BC currently has a “two-tiered system” in education, where public funding is being diverted away from the public school system into the private sector.

Two-tiered system 

According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, between the 1999-2000 and 2025-26 school years, spending on public schools in BC increased by 32%, while funding for private schools increased by 50%. 

Annual funding increases for private schools over the last decade have also drastically outpaced increases for public schools. 

“What we have is actually a subsidized two-tier system, where the people who are using private schools get public subsidies for it,” Ehrcke said. “What we’ve also seen in those years is the percentage of people sending their kids to private schools has increased.”

Ehrcke added that per-student funding follows students where they go. When parents who can afford it send their kids to private schools, it creates a funding shortfall in the public system.

“When you have 50% per student funding following kids to those private schools, and then you have kids moving from the public system to the private system, and that’s where that bigger increase comes from,” Ehrcke said. “Of course there’s only a limited number of people who are going to actually be able to afford that.”

According to the coalition, there was a $317 million dollar shortfall for inclusive education in public schools in the 2024/25 school year. 

In some cases, private schools offer programming for children with learning challenges who aren’t well-served in the public school system. When their parents can afford private school and choose to send their children there, the funding follows, making it even harder for the public school system to establish those programs.

“It’s a terrible kind of cycle where you pull this funding out of the public system and then it becomes harder and harder for the public system to actually be providing those services,” Ehrcke explained.

She said that the lack of funding also contributes to persistent issues with buildings that don’t get fixed and an overall lack of teachers in the province. 

“It’s more than an entire year’s education budget just to get our buildings up to the standard they ought to be. And that’s because we’ve had these years and years of not enough money. Our facilities are in terrible shape province-wide,” Ehrcke said. 

“We actually have a teacher shortage in British Columbia as well — if you go up to more remote parts of the province, there’s a lot of people teaching who are not actually qualified teachers because there’s no qualified teachers available to fill those jobs.”

Party pledges on education 

While Ehrcke was clear that more investment in education is needed across the board, she shared her concerns around what could happen under a BC Conservative government.

“I’ve been teaching for 20 years and it was really, really difficult under the BC Liberals where every year there were different assaults on the education system one way or another,” Ehrcke said.

“Certainly we don’t see that kind of assault on public education under the NDP, but what we don’t see either is the really necessary investment.”

Ehrcke said that it is important for the parties to take the RECESS pledge to support public funds for public education, especially in an election that is expected to be close in key ridings in the Interior, Victoria and Surrey. 

She shared that Sara Lopez, the BC NDP candidate in North Island, became the first BC NDP candidate to sign their pledge. The NDP has started or completed 250 major school capital projects since 2017.

Denice Bardua, the NDP candidate for Prince George-North Cariboo, has said that attracting and retaining teachers in northern BC is important, given that rural and remote areas don’t receive enough resources. =

“Has the NDP responded in crisis situations like in Surrey or in Langford where schools were so overcrowded? Yes, they’ve built some schools, but is it anything near what is necessary? Absolutely not,” Ehrcke said, noting that counsellors and more staffing are still needed in many school districts. 

Meanwhile, the BC Conservatives platform doesn’t include commitments to invest in education, instead focusing on “repealing SOGI 123,” which stands for ‘sexual orientation gender identity’ and is a set of resources regarding the 2SLBTQ+ community. The party also commits to “bringing back letter grades” from grades 4-9.

Additionally, the Conservatives promise to” bring back the singing of ‘O Canada’ at the beginning of the school day and proudly fly our Canadian and BC flags at every school.”

Ehrcke said that the BC Greens have provided the most fulsome plan for public education, including closing the ‘inclusion gap’, increasing the number of counsellors in schools, expanding support for SOGI, and a climate resilience plan to address the impact of climate change on classrooms. 

According to the BC Teacher’s Federation, school districts spend more on inclusive education every year than they receive in funding from the Ministry of Education and Childcare.

“We can feel very righteous sometimes in Canada and think that our social services are not like what we see down south. But in the education context, it is essentially a voucher system: That 50% per-student funding follows your child to a private or independent school,” Ehrcke said.

Ehrcke said the amount of public money going to private schools would be enough to close the inclusion gap.

“It doesn’t require any new taxes or increasing the deficit. It’s simply redirecting the public funding into public schools,” said Ehrcke.

The BC NDP and BC Conservatives did not respond to questions from PressProgress regarding their plan for public education prior to publication.