BCFED & BCTF Rally for #BCED tonight at Canada Place

What an amazing rally. There was a Maple Ridge teacher who spoke, a Vancouver grade 12 students, BCTF President Jim Iker, Jim Sinclair from BCFED, Ontario Teachers' president, CLC President Hassan Yussaff, leader of the NDP John Horgan, and many other wonderful speakers.

What was inspiring to me

• Passionate speakers
• Student who pointed out she could vote in 6 months and Christy Clark had lost her vote
• Ontario Teachers support "Your fight is our fight"
• Reminders of the importance of what we are standing up for
• Sinclair - passionate as always
• hearing enthusiasm in Jim Iker's usually calm voice
• Listening to NDP leader supporting education
• seeing past NDP leader Glen Clark who I met as a young youth advocate
• reading creative and clever signs
• seeing colleagues 
• the music, one group is made up of local band teachers (and a drama teacher) who I have worked with 
• it was massive, so many people!

I tweeted more and posted some on my facebook.

How B.C. tuition fees compare

Vancouver Sun
May 25, 2012

Students in Quebec have been striking for more than 100 days over increases to post-secondary tuition; this week in B.C. only several dozen students appeared at a rally in support.


Yet, as Sun reporter Janet Steffenhagen reported, B.C. students pay higher tuition than Quebecers attending post-secondary schools in their province, a yearly average of $4,852 compared with $2,519. Quebec's fees are the lowest in the country, where the national aver-age for tuition at public post-secondary institutions is $5,366.


Tuition for an under-graduate arts student at the University of B.C. has quintupled over the past 30 years, rising from about $900 a year to about $4,600. At the same time, the minimum wage has increased threefold over the same period, to $10.25 an hour this year from $3.65.


B.C. fees have been climbing steadily since 2002, when the newly elected Liberal government killed a six-year tuition freeze introduced by the previous NDP administration. Tuition soared as post-secondary schools tried to cover lost revenue: the University of B.C. boosted undergraduate fees by an average of 22 per cent, while the hike at Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria was about 30 per cent.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/tuition+fees+compare/6677126/story.html#ixzz1vtxHoNyz

 

 

I still can't believe how much tuition has gone up even in recent years and am not afraid to admit I still owe a lot in student loans. It is unfortunate that after going to post-secondary for so many years (I did two degrees before I became a teacher) that I am still in an unsecure, on-call, position with no steady income or pay. TTOCs with student loans, many who are on-call for more than a year or two as used to be the case, struggle to repay the money used for their education. It is frustrsting that one of my sisters, who didn't finish highschool until she went back in her 20's, makes more than I do and has no student loans to worry about. What kind of message are we sending out youth when post secondary education becomes so expensive?