VICTORIA - The Province will contribute $1 million to the BC Education Leadership Council to provide teachers with additional classroom training and leadership skills, Education Minister Shirley Bond announced today.

"B.C. has some of the best teachers in the world," said Bond. "This new program will give outstanding teachers valuable leadership skills that will make an even bigger difference in their classrooms, schools and communities."

The BC Education Leadership Council will develop a voluntary teacher leadership certification program, which will provide teachers throughout B.C. with training so they can become teacher leaders in their schools and communities. The program will also offer professional development opportunities for teachers who wish to pursue careers as principals or vice-principals.

"B.C. school boards understand the importance of ongoing training for our province's teachers," said Penny Tees, president of the B.C. School Trustees Association. "These additional funds will help teachers to connect with one another, while strengthening their skills, and will help to build a foundation for the future by encouraging and enabling educators, who may wish to pursue school or district leadership positions, to move forward in that direction."

The program, which is scheduled for implementation in spring 2008, will be based on a seminar series that is currently available to new principals. The program will focus on five key areas: mind sets of leadership, assessment for learning, supervision for learning, planning and direction-setting for improvement, and leading for learning.

"We recently introduced legislation to help improve student achievement, and funding for this new program is one of the ways we are supporting that legislation," said Bond. "We will continue to work with school boards to find new ways to help students and teachers throughout B.C. achieve their best."

The British Columbia Education Leadership Council is a not-for-profit society established in 2005 to focus on leadership development in B.C.'s K-12 public education system. The Province contributed $5 million in start-up funding for the council, which functions as an independent coalition of educational organizations to provide educators with leadership training.

The teacher leadership program fulfils a throne speech commitment and will help the Province reach its goal of making B.C. the best educated, most literate jurisdiction in North America.