Dear Editor,
As a former teacher and grandparent of two children attending a public school in Richmond, that along with all the others in B.C. is facing the challenge of maintaining the highest possible educational standards while dealing with drastically reduced budgets and support, I am appalled by (Premier) Christy Clark’s plan to provide scholarships for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean nationals to help pay for their studies in our schooling system.
Having provided already flush private schools in the province with special tax and funding privileges, this plan to finance the education of students of families that are probably wealthy enough to send their children overseas to study without the need of extra financial assistance is an insult to the parents and taxpayers of this province. Our children get only one journey through the school system and our government has an obligation to focus all of its attention and resources on providing our public school students with the best possible learning environments and opportunities rather than looking for ways to offer unnecessary and unwarranted support for those who can readily afford to exploit alternative educational opportunities for their children.
One can only conclude that Christy Clark’s philosophy of education is grounded in the elitist principle of “Those that already have should be able to get more.” Or perhaps it is simply, “Let them eat cake.” In any case I wonder how many of those naive parents of public school students who voted for Clark in the last election are now surprised or upset about her policies related to the allocation of education-related funding and resources.
If you are, I would suggest that you get your children to teach you how to do homework, because you obviously didn’t do any before you decided who to vote for in the last election.
Ray Arnold
Richmond
