The provincial government handing out $40 million in additional funding for school divisions hasn’t won over the Saskatchewan Teacher’s Federation. President Samantha Becotte believes the underfunding of education over many years has made this more of a $400 million problem, and says the announcement was more of a political move. Instead of including the money in the budget announced at the end of March, Becotte suggests the government chose to play politics and create the impression they were being responsive and solving a problem.

She understands that the money will help, but says it doesn’t get any school division to the point where they can make any improvements – it just helps them to get by for another year, while other divisions are still trying to make ends meet.

Becotte questions the way the money was meted out as well. Half of the funding is for increasing enrolment and half is for class complexity. STF’s President says even taking that into consideration, the rural and northern areas got less funding proportionately.

She also questions the amount of funding for the new Distance Learning Centre which is projected to receive over $57 million this year. She expects the DLC will have about the same number of students as the Northeast and Northwest school divisions and after taking out the startup and operating costs for the DLC, Becotte expects the funding will be around $33-million. The STF’s numbers indicate that would mean $18,000 in per student funding, which is $5,000 more than divisions of a comparable size.