All-day kindergarten will bring extra costs
Daily News canada.com
August 27, 2009

The provincial government's throne speech surprise to implement all-day kindergarten in the fall of 2010 deserves consideration.

The preponderance of opinion of early childhood educators supports the idea. One of the advantages of all-day kindergarten is that early childhood education programs can stimulate a child's development according to UBC education professor Gary Rupert.

…. "I don't believe the goal of the program is just to have kids do better in math and reading," he said. "It's about trying to create a better learning and growing situation where we would have fewer children at risk."

Furthermore, studies indicate early childhood education can prevent social problems as a child ages.

The Liberal government should be commended to bring in all-day kindergarten at this time but we must ask how the province intends to pay for 1,000 more teachers needed for the program and where it will get the $600 million annually that the government's own Early Childhood Learning Agency said is required to pay for the program.

…. The Liberals have not been supportive of local school districts since first elected to office, having downloaded numerous costs like higher teacher and support salaries on to them, without giving districts adequate funds to pay for the salaries the province negotiated. The province has also mandated class sizes to local school districts.

Will the province give districts enough funding to implement the all-day kindergarten proposal?

Districts like Nanaimo-Ladysmith are already facing financial pressures. Local trustees are so financially strapped they decided to submit a needs budget as well as mandatory balanced budget for the coming school year. With a $2.2-million shortfall for 2009-10 alone, the district had to cut 21 teaching and support positions as well a number of programs, including district funding for school meal programs, as trustees and staff worked to balance its $122-million budget for the coming school year.

Without further funds coming to them, it is unrealistic for the province to expect districts like Nanaimo to hire additional teachers to staff all-day kindergarten.

Despite the fact this provincial government maintains that funding has increased every year since first coming to power in 2001 and that enrolment has decreased, the school trustees had to lay off teachers and support staff.

…. Any extra funding for education the province can find will have to be used to cover the $600-million annual cost of all-day kindergarten and not to pay for Nanaimo-Ladysmith's new facilities renewal plan, when it arrives at the education ministry's doorstep….

The tone of Tuesday's throne speech was one of fiscal restraint and responsibility. It's easy for this government to claim fiscal responsibility if they just download costs on to other levels of governments without giving them the tools to pay for them.