Education minister promises to revamp how schools are funded next year

Education MinisterZachChurchill promised Thursday tochangehow the province delivers school funding, basing iton student needs instead of by the number of pupils.

The per-student formula has been in place for more than a decade. And theminister said Thursday that it will take at least a year to make his promised change.

"We need to have a funding formula that, I think, takes into consideration the needs of our schools, the needs of our students from a learning perspective," he said. "That will allow us, I think, to have a greater impact on their success and their well-being."

Churchill suggesteda modelbased on enrolment isoutdated.

"We have a better understanding of learning needs of students now," the minister told reporters. "And we have to have an ability to respondto those needs to make sure everysingle kid in our system is getting the very best education possible."

Churchill also pointedto two recent reports that urged his government to make the change to funding, one by education consultant Avis Glaze and another by a group examining inclusion.

Inclusive education

Glaze recommended the province "ensure that a new funding formula for schools is in place ... to better reflect the priorities of today and the decade ahead."

In a separate report on inclusive education, made public in March, commission members recommended the province "move to a funding formula for inclusive education that matches funding and resources with student needs."

Churchill said he agrees with those recommendations.

Time to change

The minister dismissed the suggestion the governing Liberals could have changed the formula sooner and saidthe former school boards were to blame.

"We had a system in place that was resulting in student achievement levels being very different from region to region," Churchill said. "That tied us to a Hoggfunding formula that resulted in supports for the diverse classroom being implementedvery differently, to different levels of success."

Bill Hogg, a former deputy finance minister,came up with the formula currently in use in 2004. It took years to implement it, however,and it'sbeen tweaked in recent years.

NDP Leader Gary Burrillsaid his caucus supported the move to a needs-based formula but worried about the fact the changes would happen behind closed doors.

"Without school boards, these are decisions and deliberations that are going to be taken entirely within the worldof the education bureaucracy in Halifax," he said. "There's not the transparency and openness that's required to see that the decisions are made in a consistent and fairly applied way."