Today, Labour Day, I am confronted with a problem. My two children, aged seven and 11, will do tomorrow what they did at the end of the 2013-2014 school year: stay at home.
I have written to you repeatedly to ask you to explain your position. I live in your riding; my children attend a school in your riding; and yet I have still not had a single word of explanation from you. You may not think you owe me, individually, an explanation; that is no doubt your prerogative. Yet this is clearly one of the most important issues facing the province, and as far as I can tell, you haven’t bothered to make your views on this issue clear. I’ve looked carefully at your website, but what I see there tells me nothing about your views. While I am, of course, delighted to learn from your website that a Squamish overpass has won an international award, I am none the wiser about what you think might be done to fix the apparently intractable problems of education in this province.
My wife and I are scrambling – like many thousands of parents across the province – to make sure that our children are properly looked after during working hours. My children, however, do not want/ need mere supervision: they deserve a proper education. Why do they deserve a good education? Not just because they’re good kids – but because the province has an obligation to its members to educate them. That’s not just my opinion: it is the law in British Columbia. The preamble to the School Act puts it plainly: “It is the goal of a democratic society to ensure that all its members receive an education that enables them to become literate, personally fulfilled and publicly useful, thereby increasing the strength and contributions to the health and stability of that society;” and “the purpose of the British Columbia school system is to enable all learners to become literate, to develop their individual potential and to acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to contribute to a healthy, democratic and pluralistic society and a prosperous and sustainable economy.”
I am deeply, deeply frustrated by your government’s continuing failure to reach an agreement with the BCTF. I am also disappointed – disappointed that my elected representatives don’t seem to give a fig about either education or explaining their views to their constituents. I had hoped for better from you.
André Lambelet
