While in her mandate letter to the newly appointed Education Minister, Demetrios Nicolaides, Premier Smith tasked him with, 'working to significantly increase the number of schools in the communities of greatest need,' Premier Smith's letter largely focused on her expectations that Alberta offers a, 'greater choice in education.'
"Alberta’s economy is creating tens of thousands of jobs in the modern economy, yet we are not doing enough to encourage Alberta students to pursue career paths with the most plentiful and lucrative employment opportunities... We must do a better job of equipping Alberta’s youth with the skills and direction they need to find meaningful employment in the economy we are building."
She wrote that in order to achieve this objective, she wants the Minister to, among other things, expand parent and student options in the public, separate, francophone, charter, independent (private), early childhood and home education systems. Smith outlined key initiatives including:
- Working in cooperation with the Minister of Advanced Education, fund the growth of “CAREERS” with public and separate school divisions to increase student participation in off-campus programs or paid internships.
- Enhancing dual credit grant programs to make more funding available for new dual credit programming and equipment.
- Continuing to bring more collegiate schools online across the province to create pathways for students to post-secondary or their chosen fields in the workforce.
Smith added that she wants to see an investment of $20 million over four years in promoting career pathways including: o
- Organizing career fairs for high school students in high-demand sectors.
- Establishing an online career counselling website for students and parents to assist with career and education road mapping.
- Launching a high school-targeted advertising campaign to promote high-demand careers.
- Developing more teacher training for career and technology studies.
- Collaborating with the Minister of Advanced Education to develop and promote career educational scholarships in areas of labour shortage for Alberta’s K-12 students.
- Funding additional mobile CTS and CTF labs
"As we grow new opportunities for students, we must address the growing needs of students with mental health and other learning challenges," Smith wrote. "As lead, working with the Minister of Seniors, Community, and Social Services to invest $5 million to improve testing and educational support for children with complex needs including children with autism."
She added that in collaboration with the Minister of Mental Health and Addiction, who is the lead, she would like there to be an expansion for access to young people struggling with severe mental illness.
"...To construct four new youth mental wellness centres to provide inpatient mental health and addiction treatment to youth while expanding prevention and early intervention mental health support for children and youth that are integrated within schools and communities."
Other initiatives enumerated in the letter include:
- Reviewing and strengthening Program Unit Funding (PUF) to ensure programming and funding are addressing the educational needs of children with severe disabilities or delays.
- Exploring incentives to support the recruitment and retention of teachers, educational assistants and support staff in underserved areas of the province.
- Continuing to implement additional educational assistants in our classrooms to address learning loss and the increasing complexity of learning needs.
- Evaluating and, if needed, expanding support for qualified professionals, such as speech-language pathologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and psychologists.
In response to the Mandate letter, Minister Nicolaides, who previously was Minister of Advanced Education in the previous UCP cabinet (this position is now filled by Minister Rajan Sawhney), said that the province's UCP government is committed to improving education in the province.
"By significantly building more schools, improving PUF and creating more dual credit opportunities, we will ensure Alberta's education system remains world-class."
However, Rakhi Pancholi, Alberta NDP Critic for Education stated that Premier Smith is already reneging on a campaign promise.
"Only weeks after the election, Smith is dropping her promise to Albertans to hire 650 teachers and 1375 educational assistants and replacing it with some vague language around ‘exploring incentives."
Pancholi also underlined that the letter gives no specifics on the building of schools.
“She [Smith] also has no instructions to her minister to build schools in specific communities which the UCP has starved of new schools and staff for the past four years. These families will continue to send their kids into aged and overcrowded classrooms... Families need to see construction dollars on the table now to address this."
As far as PUF funding goes, Pancholi added that it, 'is the very least the UCP could do.'
"It was a callous decision in the first place to cut it and too many of our youngest learners are still paying the price for that."
Alberta's UCP government was re-elected on May 29, 2023. The UCP garnered 52.6 per cent of the vote, while the NDP garnered 44 per cent. Nicolaides, whose home riding is Calgary Bow, amassed 13,175 votes, while the NDP candidate, Druh Farrell amassed 12,552 votes.