Demetrios Nicolaides vows to address unprecedented enrolment growth as well as mental health and food insecurity among students in Alberta.
Demetrios Nicolaides, the UCP government’s newly appointed education minister and MLA for Calgary-Bow, spent some time with Postmedia’s Eva Ferguson in a Q and A this week discussing the unique challenges facing Alberta’s rapidly growing K-12 school system. The minister vowed to address enrolment pressures and also support students struggling with mental health and food insecurity. Questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.1.
School divisions that have been awarded pre-planning and planning or other funding should be receiving those funds that were made available in Budget ’23. The new process that was introduced with new phases related to school construction, I’ve received a very positive response from school divisions. I was just at a conference with many representatives from many, if not all, school divisions both in person and virtually.
It’s very clear mental-health concerns are growing in our schools and our society as a whole and it’s been further complicated by the pandemic. It’s a priority for our government, not just for me in education but also the entire government. Back in 2019, we were the first government in history to establish a ministry for mental health, dedicated to addressing these issues.
We are having a lot of in-depth conversations right now with partners in education, including school divisions, First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities and leaders about what the curriculum should look like. I want to collect all of that feedback including the ongoing surveys to help inform what the final curriculum looks like.
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