KTTA: Teacher recruitment to rural areas remains a concern
KAMLOOPS — The Kamloops Thompson Teachers’ Association would like to see the provincial government spend more money on attracting teachers to rural communities.
Though the Kamloops-Thompson School District reported a week ago it had hired around 90 teachers since January, the district said it still wasn’t finished hiring for specialty positions or for teaching positions in the district’s outlying areas.
“Well, recruitment and retention is an issue all over the province,” says Amanda Jensen, president of the KTTA. “And with regards to the rural areas in our school district, our school district does a really good job of trying to recruit people. Unfortunately, because it’s an issue all over and because now is a really good year for teachers to settle where they really see themselves, often it is very difficult to recruit people to rural communities. So, I think our school district is doing a really good job but I would like to see more done on a provincial level.”
Glen Hansman, president of the BC Teachers Federation, says “historically it’s been tough to both recruit people as well as to get them to stay for a substantive amount of time” in rural areas.