In 2009, 100,000 children in British Columbia (BC) lived in families who have incomes below the after-tax poverty line, with BC having the highest child poverty rate in Canada (First Call, 2011). Income inequality is also increasing among BC families (First Call, 2010), a trend that has emerged in Canada and the United States. This report provides…

There has been little attention paid to the issue of Year-Round Schools (YRS) in British Columbia's public education system since 1996. The British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF) Research conducted extensive research into the issue of year-round schooling in the mid 1990s, when the growth in student enrolment was significant. At that time…

This report presents facts and figures on British Columbia's education for 2012. It is divided into the following seven sections: (1) Schools, which covers: (a) Number of public schools; (b) Number of independent (private) schools; (c) School closures; (d) Rural schools and students; (e) School-district amalgamation; and (f) School safety: Seismic…

In 2006, there were an estimated 181,000 low-income children in the province, with British Columbia (BC) reporting the highest before-tax child poverty rate (21.9%) in Canada (15.8%) for the fifth year in a row. This was the news in the "2008 Child Poverty Report Card" recently released by the First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition.…

Protecting and improving education should be a top priority for the BC government. Unfortunately, much of this last decade has seen conditions in BC schools worsen, rather than improve. Recent government decisions have just added to existing shortfalls in funding for schools. Unless the BC government reverses direction, projections are for…