The President of the BC Teachers Federation says school is continuing with hundreds of unfilled positions.

Terri Mooring says it’s had a teacher shortage for a while and it is complicated by the fact that its not able to attract teachers from other jurisdictions because of high living costs and low wages in BC. “A negative consequence of that is that we have hundreds of uncertified teacher replacements working in our system. It is at an all-time high. It is mainly in the more rural and remote regions of our province which makes it a geographical disparity for sure.” The BC Ministry of Education provided a written statement that says “it’s had success hiring over 4,000 teachers, and we hear regularly from school districts that they’re meeting their hiring requirements. The current number of job postings open in school districts is back to normal historical levels.  There are about 400 teacher postings in the B.C. public school system – this amounts to less than 1% of the teaching workforce. To support school districts with their hiring, we have directly funded new seats in B.C.’s teacher education programs for the first time, creating about 250 new spaces to bring in more teachers in high demand areas.” Mooring agrees that those new spaces is a good step.

When it comes to the ongoing contract dispute, Mooring says it still hopes the situation is resolved soon with the mediator set to release a report next month. “We were really hoping that we would reach a deal before the start of the school year, because we know the consequences when that doesn’t happen. Certainly we were hoping that would happen, that wasn’t the case. We’re in a mediate process now and that’s fine. We are anticipating the mediators report and we’ll go from there…. Puts a level of uncertainty in the system for parents and teachers and that uncertainly certainly isn’t good for anyone. But, it’s not contributing to the teacher shortage or any of those other issues that are happening, but it’s certainly is something that needs to happen.” The provinces statement says “it’s optimistic that the parties will find solutions and reach a deal that works for everyone in the school system.”