The Editor,
I thought I lived in Canada until encountering my son’s Grade 12 Grad Transitions requirements. Not only is he supposed to learn good money management but he is required to submit a breakdown of his budget to the school. (Note: A personal budget becomes more of a family budget when someone does not move out of the house to go to college or university.) Also required is a written explanation as to how my son’s post-secondary education is being funded.
This kind of financial plan is no one’s business but our own.
What’s worse is that failure to complete the Grad Transitions requirements means that your son or daughter will not graduate from high school.
This is a provincial policy and it amounts to nothing less than an invasion of family privacy followed by plain and simple extortion. I thought we were supposed to raise our kids so they can look out for themselves (and avoid these sorts of unfortunate situations) but it is the state that is sticking it to busy kids and treating their parents like herd animals.
Where does the B.C. government get the idea to treat people this way? The BC Liberal government’s obsession with econometrics makes us perilously like China, and we need look no further than School District 43’s symbiotic relationship with the Confucius Institute, which is intended to attract more students (read: money). By reducing everything in education to a matter of costs, you risk throwing out the values that a good education is supposed to instil, and that is what has happened with the financial planning requirements for Grad Transitions.
But the students’ instincts are good. They don’t all want to obey blindly or even tell the truth (if they did, it would be a family intrusion). And for the most part, they leave completion to the last minute, giving a similar degree of pushback (and a lot of work) to their very own transitions teachers. Congratulations, students: In so doing, you’ve just graduated!
Joerge Dyrkton, Anmore
