Seeking re-election on Oct. 19, the B.C. NDP is promising to put a counsellor in every school and an education assistant in every Kindergarten to Grade 3 classroom.
However, the incumbent party governing the province has not stated how this will be achieved and what it will cost; although the B.C. Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) has noted there are presently 1,040 counsellors and about 450 new counsellors would need to be trained, or recruited, then hired for there to be full-time equivalency for the 1,586 public schools across the province.
Meanwhile, the NDP would need to hire 2,200 new education assistants (EA) to add to the 6,000 that are presently staffed in K-3 classrooms.
Average annual full-time pay of an EA is about $56,000 (according to WorkBC) and the average pay of a counsellor is about $85,000, making these policies an estimated $170-million commitment. The NDP platform does not specify these costs.
“British Columbia’s public education system is experiencing severe staffing shortages, and these kinds of changes are necessary to ensure that kids can receive the support they need every day,” the BCTF stated.
Counsellors are among the first line of help for students with learning challenges; they refer students to psychologists to receive a psycho-educational assessment to diagnose learning disabilities and mental health disorders. If there are not enough counsellors, such assessments can be delayed.
As noted by the Gifted Children’s Association of BC, “currently in some B.C. school districts the wait list for individualized psych-ed assessments can be a few months to several years long.”
These long wait times have forced many parents to seek private assessments, costing thousands of dollars, the association contends on its website.
The NDP has also promised $500 million to build 10,000 more child-care spaces. But the party has not mentioned any commitments to meet $10/day child care across the province, as it said it would do in 2017.
The NDP has increased child-care spaces from 55,662 in 2018 to 148,977 in 2024. But of those spaces, only 15,372 are subsidized at $10/day. Instead, the NDP government has committed to fee reductions at nearly all child-care facilities.
The NDP has also made undetailed and uncosted commitments to hire more teachers and incentivize new entries into the sector.
What other parties are saying about education
Meanwhile, the BC Conservative Party does not have a costed platform and has made no official education-related statements. On its website, the party has broadly committed it “will expand the supply of affordable child-care spots, work in partnership with independent child-care providers, and give parents the resources they need to look after their kids in the way that works best for each family.”
The B.C. Green Party has a plan to increase spending on the education system by just over $1 billion next year and $1.2 billion by 2028. The Greens’ broad commitment is to “allocate additional provincial funding to hire more school psychologists, counsellors, and social workers across B.C. schools,” pay child-care workers more and pay teachers for practicums.
The Greens also commit to “undertake comprehensive reforms in facilities management to ensure all schools meet high standards of safety, functionality, and climate resilience.”
This article was edited Oct.11 to modify annual average earnings of an EA
