Getting an education …

In recent days there have been several stories in the news around education, and issues surrounding it.  The first that caught my attention was a story in what used to be called the Georgia Strait – and is now simply the Strait. 

The story was titled “Advocates push for school lunch program funding in BC”.    In the story, nutrition crusader Lisa Werring said that that about a third of elementary-school kids in Canada don’t eat a daily breakfast.  This information came from a study released last year by Breakfast for Learning.  This organizations view is that hungry kids can’t learn (no argument from me), which is why it gave out $131,675 for school breakfast programs in BC in 2009.

Now I am not going to say that low income families are wasting their money (although some do just like everyone else), but a healthy and nutritious breakfast of regular oatmeal (not individual flavored packets) is just pennies a day.  A four litre jug of milk is $4.00 and how many cups of milk do you get from that … and then an apple, an orange, or banana.

Sure that is going to get a bit boring day after day – but even a couple of eggs with toast, milk, and a piece of fruit isn’t going to be that much more.  Shreddies – Raison Bran – etc (NOT Fruit Loops, Cocoa Puffs and other sugary treats that are masked as breakfast) … all of these things are going to be under a dollar a day.

Maybe I’m wrong on this and we should explore a school breakfast program, BUT I am concerned that when we have schools that are closing --- music and arts programs (proven to help in brain development) which are either gone or a shadow of what they once were – a lack of librarians – and a host of other issues and problems – can we truly afford this.

One thing is certain though … we need to have a good hard look at the delivery of government services to make sure that we are getting the best value for where dollars are currently going; and that includes the education ministry.

On another education note … the Students Union at Thompson Rivers University is calling on government to lower tuition rates for post-secondary education.  Have they not learned from the last time around when an NDP government in BC tried to buy the votes of university students by freezing rates?  Costs go up, and to pretend they don’t is folly.  If the members of the Students Union haven’t learned this basic fact of economics, I am concerned for their future.

I’m Alan Forseth … and those are the thoughts of one conservative.