WorkBC's report has indicated that we will need over 22,000 new teachers by 2022 - most BC teachers are rather old and are retiring in ever-increasing numbers; rather like the current mass-hiring, if we do not find ways to have the supply of teachers meet demand, we will have an even worse situation as time goes by. PostMedia did a survey last week of job postings, and came up with over 900 unfilled contracts, and a need for nearly 1000 on-call teachers on top. That's a lot.

Speaking completely empirically, BC offers the worst starting salary for a teacher outside of Quebec (which has lower standards); the gap between a new BC teacher and one elsewhere can be as much as $10,000 to $20,000. Add on BC's high cost of living, and we just aren't bringing in enough teachers. Raising the starting salary would incentivize new teachers to come to BC, instead of staying in the other provinces.

If you don't like the proposed solutions, what are your alternatives?