Omar Salman wants to be an architectural engineer — but the Grade 12 student needs physics and calculus for university and can’t get into either course at his Mississauga high school.Knowing the province was moving to bigger class sizes, with fewer teachers and fewer classes, Salman said he was sure to get his choices in on time last spring — even after his school redid the course timetable because of staffing losses — and still found himself on wait lists for both.Just last week, he was told he’d have to take physics online, and he’s still 16th on the calculus wait list.“There’s at least five people (at Cawthra Park Secondary) who want to get into the sciences” who can’t get those classes, he said. “They want to go into engineering — so it’s really not good for any of our educations.”His elearning class, run by a different board, has 27 students, and he plans to use his spare period at school to do that work. One of his former math teachers has offered to help him “because it’s impossible to learn online,” he said.And if he doesn’t end up getting into a calculus class, he’ll have to take it online or at night school at another school, which means he’ll have to find the time after hours, and will incur the extra cost of transportation.“My mom is so upset for me not to be able to get into it,” said Salman, 16, whose mother is a teacher at a private, Islamic school. “It’s not the guidance office, it’s the government.” The Ontario government is implementing bigger classes starting in Grade 4, and over the next four years telling boards to move to an average of 28 students in high school, up from last year’s 22. It has promised an additional $1.6 billion in funding so no teachers will be laid off if there aren’t enough retirements and resignations — though some educators still remain jobless for ...
|