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Alberta needs a new funding formula for schools, Education Minister David Eggen said.

The funding gap between urban and rural schools grows larger every year, the minister told more than 200 rural school trustees and division leaders gathered at a symposium in Edmonton Sunday evening. Kids deserve a fair and equitable system regardless of where they live, he said.

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“I think time is up on the way that we’ve been doing it so far,” he told delegates at the Alberta Rural Education Symposium.

In an interview afterward, Eggen said work would begin on a new formula if and when the NDP government is re-elected in an anticipated spring provincial election.

A change from funding schools based on the number of students enrolled to a different model would likely be welcomed by rural school boards.

Brad Volkman, superintendent of Wild Rose school division and chairman of the symposium’s planning committee, said the minister has been hinting at a new formula for several years, and the move doesn’t surprise him.