Current Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides poses for a photo outside Medicine Hat College in this August 2021 file photo.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
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Premier Smith held a press conference in Calgary on Wednesday saying the province is committed to building 30 news schools every year for the next three years to deal with a rapid growth of population Alberta has experienced since 2022.
This year Alberta schools have seen an increase of 33,000 news students. Smith admitted the UCP’s 2024 budget allocated $2.1 billion for new school construction and modernizations was “simply not enough to address this incredible growth.”
On Tuesday Smith held a TV address announcing the province would be increasing capital spending for K-12 educational spaces to $8.6 billion by budget 2026-27, and announcing a new school construction accelerator program to help build or modernize 50,000 new education spaces for students.
Additionally the one-time capital investment into education will allow the province to create 150,000 spaces in the following four years.
Education Minister Demetrio Nicolaides told reporters Wednesday he is confident the new School Construction Accelerator program is the province’s commitment to build and modernize 200,000 student spaces over the seven years will meet the needs to keep up with fast-rising student enrolment.
“In budget 25 and in the next subsequent budgets we will announce 30 new schools each year,” said Nicolaides. “By budget 27 construction for 90 new schools will be underway in our communities of greatest need.
“These new schools will make up a large portion of the more than 200,000 student spaces we will be delivering in the next seven years.”
The new program also makes changes to the approval process that will fast-forward new school project requests and cut “red tape” around budget restrictions.
“Currently projects only move forward to the next stage during the annual budget cycle, meaning that it typically takes three years for a project to advance from planning to design to construction,” explained Nicolaides. “However we are changing that process to allow projects to move forward faster. Moving forward, a school will be able to move into its next stage at any time of the year when it has met the requirements of its stage.”
The province’s new accelerator program will also fund the purchase of new modular classrooms to create new educational spaces for 20,000 students over the next four years.
As well, a portion of the accelerator program funding will be used to create 12,500 new educational spaces for students attending charter schools over the next four years.
Smith told reporters the government is currently looking to see if the province will have to change its current funding model for new teachers and staff needed for the new educational spaces.
