For Immediate Release
January 10, 2025
NL NDP Leader Jim Dinn (St. John’s Centre) is encouraged by the work done on the Education Accord NL Interim Report but says that any meaningful change will come down to the political will of government to properly resource and fund the education system.
Dinn, a former President of the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers’ Association (NLTA), says that the interim report outlines issues and challenges he has been hearing since he was teaching. Co-chairs Dr. Anne Burke and Dr. Karen Goodnough clearly articulated long standing challenges facing our school communities, but is government really listening?
“25 years ago as a teacher I heard the same things that are clearly outlined in this interim report,” said Dinn. “I have heard the minister use ‘the game has changed’ when it comes to education, and how ‘transformative’ this report will be, but we have seen this government, and past ones, take zero action to address issues in the education system.”
“Since 2000, government has completed at least 24 reports on how to address issues in the education system, yet we are still hearing the same issues and challenges year over year,” said Dinn. “We will continue to hear the same things over and over until government puts its money where its mouth is and funds our classrooms properly.
“All you have to do is look at the Carter Churchill case that showed how little successive Liberal and Conservative governments in this province have done to address the failures in the system. We have classrooms of 30 or more students with only one teacher to provide education to students with varying needs. Until class size and allocations are addressed, the improvements government is touting will never come to fruition.
Dinn worries that the Education Accord’s work will be another report collecting dust, “Government must properly resource our schools. Our students, teachers and educators, and school staff cannot wait any longer.”
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For further information, contact Stephanie Curran, Media and Communications Officer, NDP Caucus at 330-0328 (o), or stephaniecurran@gov.nl.ca
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