Stressed teachers a surprise for minister

June 08, 2010

By: Larry Kusch

Education Minister Nancy Allan said Thursday she had no idea that so many Manitoba teachers were overstressed and she pledged to work with their union on solutions.
A report on teacher burnout prepared for the Manitoba Teachers' Society says only one teacher in four has a manageable workload and 73 per cent of public school teachers feel job stress has negatively affected their job performance.
The NDP government, proud of its working relationship with the teachers' society, admitted to being caught unaware by the key points of the report, which was released Thursday.
"This is news to us, this is a new report," said Allan, who has been education minister for six months. "I think this new report is something that we're going to have to work on together."
The task force report said the number of students identified with special needs has almost doubled in the last 10 years. Meanwhile, an immigration boom has greatly increased the number of kids in school whose first language is not English.
Conservative Leader Hugh McFadyen said Allan should not be surprised by the fact that teachers are feeling stress from increased workloads.
"Teachers I've been speaking to over the past three years have almost to a person indicated rising levels of stress as a result of increased pressures within the classroom," McFadyen said. "It shows the minister seems to be out of touch with what's happening on the front lines of the teaching profession."
Allan said the NDP has increased educational funding each year it's been in government since 1999. This year, it spent an extra $1 million to support new kids coming into the school system from other countries, and it's increased funding for special needs students, she said.
But McFadyen said the government needs to develop innovative approaches to help teachers deal with an increasingly challenging teaching load.