Education may be Ontario’s sacred sector, but Finance Minister Dwight Duncan has proposed some irreverent cuts to schools and campuses to pay for full-day kindergarten, small classes and tuition rebates.

The government’s signature all-day kindergarten program would roll out exactly as planned by the fall of 2014 — no slow-down, no change to staffing despite calls from economic guru Don Drummond — but the budget would freeze teachers’ salaries for two years, stop high school students from taking more than four credits beyond the 30 they need, and push boards toward closing more schools.

“I think graduation rates may decline if that cap on extra credits is put in place,” warned Toronto student Jenny Williams, president of the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association.

Currently some 14 per cent of high school students return for a so-called “victory lap” fifth year to brush up their marks or buy time in choosing what to do next. By limiting them to 34 credits starting in 2013, boards would save about $36 million over three years.

But if Ontario wants to limit high school to four and a half years — an extra four credits represents an extra half year — it should stop measuring graduation rates by those who do it in five, noted Annie Kidder of the advocacy group People For Education. The McGuinty government recently boasted 82 per cent of students now finish high school, but that includes students who do it in five years.

“They’re speaking out of both sides of their mouth,” said Kidder, adding she was surprised to see $500 million in education cuts from $34 million less for bussing to $91 million less on curriculum experts . . . “from a government that said they weren’t going to touch education.”

The budget turned down Drummond’s recommendation to raise class size and ignored his suggestions to charge some children to ride the school bus and to merge several schools for the deaf.

But it proposed teachers give up their right to bank unused sick days until retirement, which would save Ontario some $1.7 billion.

“It’s great to keep full-day kindergarten, but if the government wants teachers to work with them, they should treat us in a respectful way and not conduct collective bargaining through a provincial budget,” said Sam Hammond, president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario.

Yet Duncan insisted the budget blueprint is not an attack on schools.

“It’s not about demonizing teachers — we’ve rejected Drummond’s call to cut nearly 10,000 teachers’ jobs and almost 10,000 more support staff,” argued Duncan, but in the end, wage freezes are needed because “compensation is our greatest single cost.”

The budget would keep the 30 per cent tuition grant that was a hallmark of the Liberal education platform, but slap a freeze on any new building projects not already announced — leaving in limbo three new satellite campuses pledged in the throne speech last fall.

The Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario said it is “frustrated” at the proposal to cut nine scholarship and financial aid plans including the popular Ontario Work Study Program, which chair Sandy Hudson called “another government betrayal.”

The budget would let the province claw back $750 from the fees paid by every international student at an Ontario college or university, a move institutions would likely recoup by hiking international tuition by $750.

With files from Rob Ferguson

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