If anyone doubts the imminent demise of the emergence of a province-wide all-day kindergarten programme in BC in the near future, think again.
The emergence of an apparently insatiable Olympic appetite for taxpayer money coupled with the recent release of several bogus Olympic budgets, points to not just a postponement but the demise of key education initiatives, among them universal all-day kindergarten.
To think otherwise flies in the face of reality.
It’s not just the rushed January convening of a special session of the BC provincial legislature to bail out the billion dollar Olympic Village boondoggle, but the upcoming gathering storm around the hidden Olympic security budget that could top a billion dollars, eliminating any pretense of the availability of funds from Victoria for essential early childhood programmes.
Ironically, the Vancouver Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee have excluded the highly regarded humanitarian organization Right to Play from operating from the Vancouver Olympic Village site as it has in previous Olympics. Right to Play uses sports and play programmes to improve health, develop life skills and foster peace for children and communities in some of the world’s most disadvantaged countries.
On top of the Olympic Village’s potentially heavy debt, the exclusion of Right to Play further tarnishes the iconic status of this controversial site.
However, it was the late January front-page analysis by the Vancouver Sun pegging the overall Olympic debt at a massive $6 billion (and counting!), that puts paid to any remaining hope for the implementation of universal all-day kindergarten in all of BC’s 59 school districts in the near future.
Shamefully, it has now emerged that both Canadian and BC taxpayers have been either hoodwinked or lied to — in this case, both — by politicians at all levels (municipal, provincial, and federal) in the lead up to next year’s much ballyhooed Olympic sports extravaganza.
For the past three years provincial politicians have shamelessly promised action on the early childhood file. There has been no let up on the hype and spin from the Ministry of Education on this topic.
Parents were told we would have “great early childhood programmes in BC. Make no mistake: they will be some of the best in Canada.” The provincial government pleaded that it needed a little more time to “get it right,” and then, as our education minister boasted, “we are going to lead the way!”
The BC Liberals’ 2007 speech from the throne belatedly conceded that “currently approximately 25% of children (in BC) are not ready to learn when they enter kindergarten.”
Vague and over-the-top promises followed this speech, such as BC Education Minister Shirley Bond’s assertion that by the year 2012, BC will have, “pre-kindergarten classes for 3-year-olds” when at the same time the prospects for all-day kindergarten for 5-year-olds, as the minister well knew, were rapidly disappearing over BC’s financial horizon.
However, that did not prevent Bond from claiming that currently, “BC leads the country in early childhood education” when in reality, according to most analysts, BC is close to being dead last.
