There are ten provinces in our confederation and when it comes to supporting post-secondary students in financial need, the province of BC is number ten. You don’t have to be a math major to realize that if the province is to move forwards over the years accessible education is a must for the youth of British Columbia.
Friday’s Dally news featured the background on the findings of the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation, which provides details on the rather miserly contributions of the provincial government to students in need. A situation that North Coast MLA Gary Coons suggests weighs against students from rural areas and those living outside of the province’s urban core areas and one that the NDP would take action on should they form the government…
There are posters all over my school about this–it’s quite the hot topic for post-secondary students and educators.
I will point out one thing though (which will turn into 10 things, as usual). If the graphs on the posters are correct, and I assume they are, funding in BC IS on the rise–which makes sense with a constantly increasing cost of living. What we see is a funding gap with other provinces–they’re all increasing as well, and at the same rate, but we started lower.
With that one thing pointed out–here’s one more. The graph dropped right up until the Liberals came to power, and then we start to see a steady raise. Now, I don’t know why the NDP was lowering funding to post-secondary students–but perhaps before Mr. Coons places blame on the Liberals he should look at the numbers. Certainly the Liberals could be doing more, and maybe they should–but the issue starts with the NDP lowering the funding in the first place.
I will add two more things. First, the poster I’m referring to is outdated. It only goes to 2006, I believe. I’m open to the possibility that the Liberals have made a sharp decrease to the post-secondary funding. Second, I’ll take a low quality picture of the poster with my phone next time I walk past one as support for my statement.
Well I can safely predict, that the promise of more funding for post secondary students will become one of the causes de jour of the next election campaign, with no shortage of cash promised.
What remains to be seen, is if the same level of funding that we are about to hear about in the next six months will equal the same level of funding when the next government takes office…