To the Editor,
I hesitate to write my opinion on the subject of class sizes because of the acrimony displayed by the teachers’ union on this subject. Much has rubbed-off on teachers and that is truly unfortunate. For those who are able to think beyond the rhetoric, I offer the following:
One of the key responsibilities of people in business is in determining the appropriate level of manning to run the business in an efficient and cost-competitive manner. In collective agreements this is one of the core management rights, and a very important one.
If you give up control of manning levels, you lose the ability to control the cost of doing business. Of course that can put the business in jeopardy of failure, and the employees’ jobs along with it.
Governments have similar rights and responsibilities to control costs.
The BCTF was handed plumbs in 1974 and again in 1998, when the NDP government ceded those management rights by way of class size limitations. In 2002, the current government recognized that manning levels did not belong in collective agreements, and moved class size restrictions out of the contract and into the School Act as guidelines.
Sure it was heavy-handed, but I think most would agree that it needed to be done.
A fitting example exists today in the Province of Ontario, which is struggling under a mountain of debt. That debt, if not controlled and reduced, could eventually result in Ontario’s situation resembling that of Greece’s, where thousands of public sector workers are losing jobs and benefits.
The Ontario “Drummond Commission Report” has just released recommendations to reduce the cost to government. One of its recommendations is to increase class sizes in schools. This is not a desirable option, as education is important to us all. However, if things get bad enough, this is one of the tools to reduce cost, but not available if manning is bound-up in collective agreements.
I think it is pretty clear that setting class sizes and learning conditions are the responsibility of the Ministry of Education and school boards, not the teachers’ union.
Murray Duncanson
Nanaimo