Talks have broken down between the British Columbia government and its teachers over the issues of class size and composition.
George Abbott, minister of education, said late Monday that proposals by the British Columbia Teachers' Federation would have cost too much and both sides have now reached an impasse.
"What the union is now suggesting would require as much as a 50 per cent increase in the number of teachers in B.C. at a cost of more than $1 billion to resolve this matter," Abbott said in a statement.
But Susan Lambert, BCTF president, said the talks broke down because the government wanted to preserve its managerial rights and allocate resources as it saw fit.
"They don't want those rights to be fettered by any collective agreement language that would guarantee smaller class sizes and services to students," she said.
The negotiations were separate from ongoing contract talks, taking place at another table, between the government and teachers who have been on strike since the beginning of September.
Instead, the issue is directly related to two laws introduced by the provincial government in 2002 that stripped teachers of their ability to negotiate class size and composition.
The B.C. Supreme Court ruled in April that those laws violated teachers constitutional rights and gave the government a year to resolve the issue.
Abbott said the government put a "thoughtful, constructive proposal" and $165 million back on the table to help support teachers, but he said the province is not willing to abandon its principles.
"Those principles include providing greater choices to students and parents and helping to meet school district priorities," he said.
Lambert said the breakdown means there will be fewer teachers and larger classes in B.C. schools and less support for students with special needs.
"What we want to do is guarantee universal access of every child to the learning conditions that they require," she said.
"We want to have stable funding for public education and we want to have enough teachers in the system so that you have smaller classes and so that you can provide specialist services for students who require them, for all students who require them."
