VANCOUVER—The head of B.C.’s teachers union says students, parents and teachers will have to unite to fight a political battle if they want to stop the Ontario government from increasing class sizes and reducing teaching jobs. Ontario teachers don’t have the ability to negotiate class size and have composition enshrined in collective agreements, said Glen Hansman, the outgoing president of the B.C. Under the Progressive Conservative government’s education plan, average high school class sizes would increase from 22 students per class to 28. Ministry of Education statistics for 2010/2011 show the average grade 8 to 12 class size was 25.1 students. In 2016/2017 — the year following the court case win that restored the BCTF’s ability to bargain for class size and composition — that had dropped to an average of 22.9 students.

Source: thestar April 05, 2019 23:26 UTC