BC’s Education Minister admits he’s a little surprised that contract negotiations for teachers in the province has taken as long as it has.

Teachers have been without a contract since July 1, but Rob Fleming is confident that a deal will be reached by this weekend.

He says mediated talks between the BC Teachers Federation and the BC Public School Employer’s Association are set to wrap up this Friday.

“I also mentioned the agreement that we achieved with support staff in the K-12 system, it took under two weeks,” he said. “Having said that, we want to take the time to get it right. We’re also dealing with the first set of negotiations as a new government. We’ll continue to talk and see if we can get a deal soon.”

However, as NL News understands, not all supportive staff have ratified a contract with school districts in B.C.

Even if no deal is reached by the weekend, Fleming says the next school year will begin on Tuesday as normal.

“We’re having discussions. We have the assistance of a talented mediator to try and get this deal done and I remain hopeful that we can do that,” Fleming said. “I see no reason having concluded agreements with nurses and other public sector unions across government that we can’t get an agreement that’s good for teachers and good for the school system and good for kids.”

Fleming says those recently concluded deals cover about 225,000 public sector workers across the province.

Negotiations with teachers has been ongoing since January, and in addition to language around class size and composition, teachers are also hoping to see an increase to the pay checks.