Dear editor,
I was amazed to learn that the average job in B.C.’s coal industry pays $107,000 per year.
That’s a living wage that a person can really sink their teeth into and build a solid life around.
If you calculate it on a 40-hour work week, across a 52-week year, that’s more than $50 an hour, or five times the minimum wage. And that’s just what the average job pays!
Rather than putting precious resources into training more teachers just to add to the glut of teachers that already exists in B.C., why not put the emphasis on training people for jobs in the mining industry. Mining is high-tech these days and the people needed to fill those jobs need high-tech skills and training.
Besides which, if we’re ever going to have the financial resources to support and employ all those people graduating with teaching certificates we’re going to need the revenues that a healthy mining sector contributes to the province’s bottom line.
Donald Leung,
Burnaby