The New Brunswick Department of Education came out with eight recommendations Wednesday for the Anglophone education system’s upcoming school year.
“One of the things we’re going to do is hire teachers under contract,” said N.B. Education Minister, Bill Hogan.
“So that we know in certain areas and districts will help identify those schools that teacher X will be available on any given day to replace the first teacher that’s absent,” Hogan said.
“If there’s no teacher that’s absent then we’ll have that teacher available to work with individual students,” he said.
Some of those recommendations include hiring supply teachers to be added for additional school staff, and to support foundational skills, more teachers will be hired for literacy and numeracy development.
The recommendations also included establishing a Centre of Excellence for Language Learning, to strengthen French language learning in the Anglophone education system.
“It’s a central hub where educators can have direct access experts, researchers, resources, etc,” said Dr. Tiffany Bastin, assistant deputy minister of the Anglophone education system and co-chair of the executive steering committee.
“In one area so it’s easier to access, there will be a fulltime educator who will be the kind of knowledge translator and can connect,” Bastin said.
“Part of this center of excellence is to provide those resources online with authentic learning opportunities,” Hogan said.
“Ones that aren’t just based on particular areas where they can practice that,” he said.
The education minister could not provide data on hiring targets for the recommended roles.
“Currently we’re working with each individual districts to see what their needs are and how best we can meet their needs,” Hogan said.
“Currently with the funds we have available and we’ll see how we can augment that as we move forward,” he said.
Minister Hogan couldn’t give a cost for implementing the new recommendations, saying that it’s already built into the province’s budget.
boxing1