Despite a $9.9 billion investment into operating expenses for public education, the Alberta Teacher’s Association and the Canadian Union of Public Employees says it is still not enough.
According to Budget 2025, the operating expense budget for education from kindergarten to Grade 12, a 4.5 per cent increase from the 2024-2025 third-quarter forecast.
The government is also investing $54 million in 2025-26 and $348 million in the following two years to support additional enrolment growth.
The province said it will invest an additional $55 million in Budget 2025 and another $94 million in each of the following two years to adjust the per-student funding model for school authorities. Currently, the province invests around $9,000 per student, which hasn’t changed since the 2018-19 school year.
Almost $1.1 billion will be provided over the next three years to address growth and hire more than 4,000 new teachers and classroom support staff, according to Budget 2025 documents. The province will also invest $55 million in 2025-2026 to add staff and resources to address complex needs, a 20 per cent increase from Budget 2024.
Around $389 million will be provided over the next three years to cover rising costs to maintain educational facilities and provide programs and services to students.
“This is the highest ever budget for education in the province. We’re investing in schools to help them with enrollment pressures, almost $1.1 billion will be provided over the next three years to address growth and to hire more than 4000 new teachers and classroom support staff,” said Minister of Finance Nate Horner at a news conference before the budget was introduced in the Alberta legislature on Thursday.
“With support from Budget 2025, school authorities will be able to add staff and supports to complex classrooms so students receive the focus and attention they need.”
Jason Schilling, president of the ATA, said the operating expense budget does not begin to cover inflationary costs and student growth over the years. He said $11.35 billion would be needed to adequately fund public education across the province, a $910 million difference.
The Calgary Catholic School District and the Calgary Board of Education have repeatedly said over the past year that the model is unsustainable as both schools deal with higher-than-normal enrolment pressures and increasing classroom complexities. The CBE’s board of trustees sent a letter to Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides last November, which said the current weighted moving average funding framework is inadequate because it has not been adjusted for inflation. The letter said an additional $1 billion is needed to bring per-student funding in Alberta in line with the national average.
“We have the most students that we’ve ever seen in our classrooms in Alberta. Therefore, I would expect that the budget would increase according to student growth in inflation, yet we’ve not seen that happen for for years,” Schilling told LWC.
“The government fails to meet the student enrollment growth. They fail to meet the inflation pressures. When I talk to my colleagues across the province, they’re working in classrooms with the largest number of students they’ve ever seen. They have fewer resources today than they’ve had in years past.”
Schilling also raised concerns about the province’s promise to invest more money into hiring more teachers and classroom support staff.
“We’ve heard these numbers before. I’ve heard this already. It’s like a broken record. We’re going to hire more teachers into the system. We’re going to do all of these things, but until they actually address the working conditions of teachers, learning conditions … We will see teachers leave the profession, because we’re seeing a high burnout rate from teachers right now,” he said.
“Whether or not they can hire these 4,000 teachers … They said last year they were going to hire 3,000 new staff over three years. To me, it’s just a regurgitation of a number that they’ve thrown out in the past already.
Schilling’s words come as education support workers and custodial staff across the province are currently on strike. In Calgary, more than 1,000 custodial staff working for the CBE and the CCSD went on strike. Thousands of education support workers in Edmonton and Fort McMurray have been on strike since January.
On Wednesday, thousands of education support workers protested in front of the Alberta legislature for better wages and for the government to go back to the bargaining table.
“The government has increased education funding, but it’s not enough to cover enrollment and inflation. We would need an increase of 6.8%, what we got was 4.5%. So Alberta education will continue to deteriorate,” said Rory Gill, president of CUPE Alberta.
“For four years, Alberta has had the lowest education spending in Canada. This means the strikes are likely to continue, and spread to more school districts. The government does not seem to care that education support workers are making poverty wages, and have gone a decade without a proper increase.”
