这篇文章是前前前教育厅长写的。
BCTF has ruined the professionalism of teachers
The Province
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Page A10
By Dr. Patrick McGeer
The provincial government must cure the warfare that has been plaguing the school system in British Columbia for decades. Dealing with the current impasse in labour negotiations is only the first step. It does not solve the long-term problem.
That will require legislation declaring that education is an essential service and that strikes are no longer permitted. Then the requirement that membership in the B.C. Teachers Federation as a condition for teaching in a B.C. public school should be eliminated. That way teachers can follow their conscience and will no longer be obliged to obey their union leaders.
There is more to teaching than tutoring in reading, writing and arithmetic. Teachers need to set an example that students can look up to and admire.
The atmosphere of confrontation that pervades our school system today demeans teachers, handicaps students and undermines attitudes. How can teachers take pride in their work when their union demands they abandon their students? And how can they prepare their graduates to enter the workforce, when the attitudes toward their job and the reliability of turning up for work become paramount?
When I was B.C.'s minister of education, a strike by teachers was unthinkable, not just by the government, but by the teachers themselves. They took pride in being professionals. But if a walkout had taken place during my watch, my recommendation would have been to deal with the strikers the same way that Ronald Reagan dealt with the air traffic controllers - thank them for their service and hire replacements.
Throughout the century, teachers have been well treated in B.C. That is why so many young people are hoping to enter it as a profession. There are nine institutions in B.C. offering degrees in education. They graduate about 1,800 students each year. The numbers are swelled by a further 800 to 900 each year from outside the province, who apply for, and receive, teaching certificates.
This supply is matched against about 1,000 positions available. Well over half of all young people who wish to become teachers, and who spend years training to become teachers, will never have a chance to be one. Getting a job as a teacher in B.C. is a privilege in itself.
Education is the responsibility of the provincial government. That includes establishing the curriculum, setting the standards for its delivery and monitoring the performance of each and every school in B.C. No aspect of that responsibility should be compromised or delegated to any other body, especially to a closed-shop labour union such as the BCTF.
B.C. taxpayers, and particularly those with children in the school system, should consider whether any public interest has been served by the creation of such a union.
Fred Carrothers, the legendary law professor at the University of B.C., who made a specialty of labour negotiations, once told me, "the job of union leaders is not to obtain their fair share, but to get as much more of their fair share as is humanly possible."
This is not to condemn the process. It is only to understand that this is the job of union leaders.
Are teachers better off because of BCTF union demands? Probably not, because they will always have to remain within the framework of all government unions.
Would they have been better off remaining as professionals outside this framework? My guess is yes.
Dr. Patrick McGeer, a distinguished neurology researcher at the University of B.C. and former Olympian, served as an MLA from 1962 to 1986, the last 10 years as a cabinet minister.
