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The New Democratic Party in British Columbia (BC NDP) has created a platform that puts specific emphasis on increased mental health support in schools. They note that “we’re building on our investment into mental health supports for students and staff, and are committed to better-supporting children and youth with special needs and their families, so everyone involved in our kids’ learning gets the help they need.”
Additionally, they claim to be organizing “the largest modernization of schools in BC’s history”. This plan includes physical upgrades to schools with a specific focus on seismic upgrades and meeting climate change and energy standards.
The party also promises to bring “in local food programs in partnership with school districts”. According to their platform, there is an inherent need to ensure “students are properly fed for learning”. They also promise to take “the fundraising burden off parents”. Finally, the party promises to make “sure classrooms have the resources they need”. This includes “targeted investments to help make sure students have the classroom supplies they need to succeed, so parents and teachers don’t have to pay the full cost out-of-pocket”.
Within the Liberal Party of British Columbia’s platform, they pledged $200 million of new funding over three years for advanced education although that investment is focused on infrastructure. There is no detailed breakdown of investment in their platform, so it’s difficult to understand how much of this investment would go towards core funding needs.
They also vowed to “adopt the disclosure requirements of the UK Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills, to ensure all BC students know, before they register, the total costs of a program, the graduation rate and employment rate”. One of the main focuses of their platform concerning advanced education is on student access and financial aid that they claim will come through providing more jobs to doctors and nurses, however, there is no clear explanation with regard to how this would be accomplished.
The Green Party of British Columbia has an exhaustive list of education reforms they committed to carrying out were they to be elected. Among their vows are to ensure “$300 million in new funding to begin phasing in up to 25 hours of free early childhood education programs per week for 3 and 4-year-olds, rising to $550 million as capacity expands”. Additionally, they promise to “provide $100 million in new funding to create a new capital program in the Ministry of Education to find renovation and additions to existing schools to support ECE spaces”.
Similar in essence to the New Democratic Party platform outlined above, the Green Party promises to “create a new $25 million fund for school districts to develop a food program for their schools in their district”. Moreover, they claim to “address the continued disparities in wages, class size and composition between districts” as well as “improve access to speech-language pathologists and school psychologists, and develop new resources for students with special needs.”
Concerning post-secondary, the Green Party promises to “double the funding of the B.C. Access Grant to help support post-secondary part-time students, and those enrolled in multi-year programs”.
New Democratic Party
During the recent 2020 provincial election, John Horgan’s New Democratic Party pledged to invest in mental health support for schools. In April 2020, they announced $5 million to expand existing mental health services, as well as launch new virtual programs to help those struggling throughout the pandemic, fulfilling their election promise. The NDP also promised to modernize schools with a specific focus on seismic upgrades. As of July 2020, six Vancouver schools are currently undergoing extensive seismic upgrades. These six schools fall under the province's 2017 promise to invest $325 million for seismic upgrades or replacements at 12 Vancouver schools.
Horgan has also pledged an additional $3 billion a year to build schools and hospitals. The NDP has begun building several new schools as part of this promise. From 2020-21 two new schools were built in Surrey, 935 new student seats were opened as the result of expansion in Coquitlam, [construction has begun on a new school in Abbotsford](https://www.abbynews.com/news/construction-begins-on-new-eagle-mountain-elementary-school-in-abbotsford/#:~:text=Construction has begun on a,childcare spaces for the community.&text=The Abbotsford school district is,adjacent to Eagle Mountain Park.), and land has recently been purchased in Langford in preparation for the construction of a new school. These examples are just some of the progress the NDP has made in physically upgrading schools in BC. Finally, the NDP promised to decrease the need for student fundraising in both their 2017 and 2020 platform. In 2018, Horgan [announced a $5 million playground fund](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-school-playgrounds-1.4654478#:~:text=Premier John Horgan announced Tuesday,for new or upgraded equipment.) that also targeted limiting the need for parents fundraising. There have not been any recent comparable investments in this regard since the 2020 elections. On the other hand, the NDP promised to further integrate schools and local food programs. While many students depend on school food programs for nourishment, no new investment has been made to expand these programs.
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