With three weeks left before the start of the school year, the province and the B.C. Teachers Federation are getting set for eight days of bargaining in August.

BCTF’s President says everyone wants to resolve the situation before kids head back to class. Teri Mooring says “teachers are committed to getting a deal before the start of the school year. So, we’re prepared to roll up our sleeves, we’re prepared to do the work needed to try and get that deal knowing that bargaining needs both parties to be equally committed.”

Mooring says BC teachers need to see some gains in these negotiations as they’re among the lowest paid teachers in the country.”We have a lot of catching up to do. We realize that we’re not going to catch up everything in one contract negotiation. But, teachers really need to see gains and we need to see that particularly in our salary. We are far behind other province’s and territories in Canada.”

Mooring believes eight days is plenty if time despite the fact that negotiations have been ongoing since January, Mooring says they’re frustrated that they don’t have a deal yet. ” We knew that this would be a bit of a complicated bargain given it’s the first time we’ve been able to negotiate class size and composition since the restoration of our language. We did start a little early and so we’ve been going back and forth at the bargaining table since January. So, it’s actually been plenty of time.”

The union represents 43,000 public school teachers in the province who have been without a contract since the beginning of July.