Article content continued

It’s noteworthy the Sask. Party has also opened 46 new schools (compared with the 31 closed, that would include some replacement schools) since coming to power — many built under the P3 model. There have also been 23 that have been renovated or expanded, and there have been 172 portable classrooms added since 2013 alone.

But all that said, it can also be argued the Sask. Party government has struggled as much as any other administration when it comes getting it right in the classrooms.

New Democrat education critic Carla Beck noted last week 70 Saskatchewan schools exceed 100 per cent capacity, while 20 are at more than 120 per cent overcapacity.

Moreover, Beck notes there is a lack of a co-ordinated strategy for Saskatchewan’s urban centres.We still see long-standing grievances like the demand for another Catholic high school in Regina, or a public high school in Regina’s growing east side.

And in rural divisions, we see the long-standing problems of underfunded rural school divisions —largely based on the sensibility of the province’s education funding formula, which is on a per-student basis. With school divisions in Regina and Saskatoon swallowing up 60 per cent of the 2019-20 Saskatchewan budget’s $26-million increase in education funding, there is now a pushback from some rural school divisions to change the formula. This is a government where 60 per cent of its caucus comes from rural members.

It’s more than a little ironic that Education Minister Gord Wyant launched last week his online survey to help direct the future of education, with little or no emphasis on the specific old and new problems.

It may be a lost opportunity. We do need a better way of assessing Saskatchewan’s needs.

Mandryk is the political columnist for Regina Leader-Post.