Premier Roy Romanow: Balancing the Budgets & Downsizing Education |
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By Mario deSantis, September 11, 1999 |
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In last Wednesday night's televised leaders debate, Premier Romanow prided his government for | |
free tuition fees for first year post secondary students is just an electoral gimmick | being able to balance the budgets and charged the opposition for not being able to add up |
numbers(1). However, we must also remember that our Premier Romanow promised that | |
Saskatchewan would be the shining light to the world and that "...the time for mortgaging our | |
children's future is over. The time for building their future is here...."(2). No Mr. Romanow, the | |
time for building our children future is not here yet, and your electoral promise to provide free | |
tuition fees for first year post secondary students is just an electoral gimmick to further divide and | |
conquer(3) the electorate. | |
the present deteriorated state of our educational system | Yesterday, the University of Regina Students' Union and the University of Saskatchewan |
Students' Union had a full page on the StarPhoenix publicizing the present deteriorated state | |
of our educational system(4). Also, yesterday, I received an e-mail from my son | |
Eric and he invited me to visit the web site of his mathematics professor Dr. Doug MacLean(5). | |
Well, I visited Professor MacLean's web site and I found the disconcerting truth that our | |
overall substandard knowledge of mathematics and that our educational system is falling apart | Saskatchewan students have an overall substandard knowledge of mathematics and that our |
educational system is falling apart. Professor MacLean reported that students who received a 6% | |
grade on a 35 year old grade 10 algebra test had obtained final grades in excess of 80% in their high | |
school algebra courses(6). Yes, Mr. Romanow, you were able to balance the budgets, but you have | |
downsized the most important resource, a resource with no price tag: the education of our children. | |
------------Endnotes: | |
Leaders exchange political fire, by Mark Wyatt, The StarPhoenix, September 9, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | |
Saskatchewan New Democrats Home Page, as at March 14, 1999 | |
The Political Mission of Premier Romanow: Divide and Conquer, by Mario deSantis, April 18, 1999. Published in the North Central Internet News | |
An excerpt of the statements publicized by the University of Regina Students' Union and the University of Saskatchewan Students' Union: "...education matters. Make post-secondary education your concern. Vote education...", The StarPhoenix, September 9, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | |
Professor Doug MacLean's Web Page, University of Saskatchewan | |
Professor MacLean's memo dated January 21, 1998 directed to Faculty members http://math.usask.ca/~maclean/memo_35.pdf |