The Manitoba government continues to reduce class sizes for children in kindergarten to Grade 3 by providing additional new funding of $4 million for the province’s Class Size Initiative in 2013-14. This announcement was made by Education Minister Nancy Allan.
“Every parent wants their child to receive the attention they need in the classroom,” said Allan. “Smaller class sizes and investments in teaching contribute significantly to improving the quality of education in our province because students do better when they receive more one-on-one time. Our investment will allow our schools to hire 69 new full time teachers. ”
This additional $4 million will bring the total provincial funding for the class size initiative to $7 million in 2013-14. The funding is in addition to the $27.2 million in new provincial education funding the minister announced last week. The funding will be targeted at school divisions that require additional teachers to reduce class sizes.
In 2011, the province announced that it will provide new supports to enable school divisions in Manitoba to cap their kindergarten to Grade 3 classrooms at 20 students by September 2017.
In the first year of the initiative, 79 teachers were hired to teach in 31 school divisions. The minister said all of them are having a direct impact on class size that has resulted in:
- a 20 per cent reduction in kindergarten to Grade 3 classes with 24 or more students,
- 11 per cent more kindergarten to Grade 3 classes that have 23 students or less, and
- 13.7 per cent more kindergarten to Grade 3 classes that have 20 students or less.
“In the past, economic uncertainty meant freezes and cuts to our schools. Our government is committed to making investments in education that give our children the start they deserve,” said Allan. “Fourteen consecutive years of funding education at the rate of economic growth demonstrates this.”
