Failures to offer our children the right to a proper education will inevitable affect our society.

Is it internationally recognized that in a democratic society everyone has the right to earn an education in order to be a full participant of the society that they live in.

Each one of our children forms part of a family, a family forms part of a society and a society forms part of the international community. We all have responsibilities not only within our family unit but in the community at large.

To offer our children the best education that they can get, is the heritage which we, as a society, can leave behind with pride and with a true sense of commitment. It is our duty to offer this to our children.

One day, not far off, our children will be our society’s politicians, laborers, doctors, nurses, teachers, factory workers and our neighbors.

Our children will be the ones responsible for carrying out what we have continued from our past generations. They should be able to move ahead with the advantage of a more sophisticated education. What we do for our children today will affect and benefit all of us and our society tomorrow.

We are fortunate to live in a democracy where we have been able to tell the world with pride that we are responsible members of our family, our society and our international community by taking seriously the education of our children by the way we are preparing them to take over from us adults. We need their knowledge and expertise to help to make our community a healthier place.

In 2001, the Vancouver School Board suffered a budget deficit of approximately 22.5 million dollars; it is estimated that for the year 2003, there will be another drop of approximately 11 million dollars. These budget deficits have been the responsible factors for very serious cuts backs in the education of our children.

Our children’s education has been seriously affected by the decisions made by the Minister of Education and other politicians, and if the cuts projected for the year 2003 are implemented, our children’s education would suffer further.

Many of our children come from a variety of countries, and they are happy to be part of their new Canadian society and are hopeful that in the future they too will contribute to enrich our society by proving their full participation; therefore their proper education is essential.

We are conscientious members of our society and as members of the Latin American Council (LACC) we urge the Minister of Education to consider a realistic and enlightened approach to our children’s education.

We urge the Minister to re-evaluate the student’s programs within the Inner City Schools, the Alternate Schools programs and to reinstate the programs that has been eliminated by the provincial cuts. These programs have been very instrumental in aiding our new immigrant students to learn and to become integrated participants of our society.

We urge the Minister to reduce the number of students per class room from the present 30. This situation not only becomes an impossible challenge to the teachers but to the students who may have language barriers, cultural adaptation difficulties, generation gaps between their parents and themselves because they are part of a dual culture; that of their parents and that of the Canadian society.

The programs that have been eliminated have negatively affected our children’s hope for a possibility of obtaining their right to a proper education.

Some of the programs that have been eliminated offered the students an opportunity to realistically deal with their individual learning challenges. The Multicultural Liaison Worker’s program, for example, has been cut in half. These workers are the only direct link between parents with different ethnic backgrounds and the main stream schools.

Presently, the Multicultural Workers are each dealing with about 60 schools. They also have to respond to emergency calls which average to about 20 telephone calls a day, these are in addition to the regular telephone calls that they received. Every three months there is the parent-teachers conference, which purpose is to inform the parents of the child’s progress. Each student has several teachers and consequently the parents would need to hear from them all. This task is impossible for parents who have language barrier and who can not benefit from the assistance of the Multicultural Worker because the number of workers have been reduced to half.

Another Vancouver School Board (VSB) very important program that is at risk to being eliminated is the support, orientation and information workshops and seminars offered to children and parents with different ethnic backgrounds.

The role of the liaison worker, among other duties, is to provide support and information to the new immigrant students and their families; they take care of providing orientation about the educational system, they are involved in parenting groups, communication techniques, conflict resolution, all of which is necessary to offer the new members of our Canadian society an opportunity to learn about their new country and to offer them an opportunity to be full participants and contributors to our Canadian society.

Among many issues, there is the issue of family reunification which, due to the lengthy immigration procedure, forces families to be separated for very long periods. This affects each member of that family and consequently our society because they have become part of our society and if their needs are neglected; we are neglecting our society at large.

To illustrate with one “vignette” a real story, the life and experience of an immigrant child. He came to Canada and went to grade one at an elementary school in Vancouver. He first faced language barrier and with the passage of time, he encountered many other difficulties. Some of these were faced by all students and would be considered “normal” for kids his school age, but, in addition to those, the number of children per class room increased dramatically, no much opportunity for a teacher to get to know the student, his teachers understood this child to be withdrawn at first and later, after undergoing some tests, the child was “diagnosed” to be mentally challenged with some degree of retardation.

This child was in the process of a very lengthy immigration procedure, and his immigration status was “pending”. This child went to school every day knowing that there was a possibility that he and his family might be sent back to their country of origin, to the very same country that they had escaped to save their lives. Although his family spared him the details, he knew that his father had been murdered.

At the time this child was experiencing all of these difficulties, we had not yet been affected by the provincial cuts. We still had in our educational program the Youth and Family Worker.

The Youth and Family Worker took this child under his wing and served as a heaven sent bridge to help this child to get enough confidence to learn how to read, the worker also provided the child’s family with information and orientation about life in Canada and the worker also provided a linkage between this child’s family and the school, so that there was an understanding not only of the family situation but also of the educational system.

Like this real life “vignette”, we are aware of the needs of our community and our workers are engaged in participating in providing seminars and workshops to student, their families and other professionals who are involved in the process of education.

Our children need these programs. LACC urges the Minister of Education to reconsider the government cuts to the benefit of a whole future generation of BC children and to allow our workers to continue to support our children and their right to a proper education. It is clear that the Minister of Education must review for reconsideration the Vancouver School Board budget with the realities of our multicultural society, in order to offer our children the possibility of a quality life in the future. Recognized by our international community; our children have the right to an education, which is the investment that a society must follow as part of our duty.

Sincerely,

Roxana Aune
LACC Board Member
RSW/Paralegal