Alberta’s “Catch-Up” Education Budget 2026 still lags behind rapid growth of student base and needs

Yesterday’s 2026 Budget announcement proposes “catch-up” funding to the tune of $10.8B in education funding. This signifies that Albertans, including the education workers’ labour actions, have successfully mounted substantial pressure on government to at least slow the deliberate dismantling of public education. However, in the context of the past 6 years of steep and widespread cuts, the proposed 7% overall increase still leaves Alberta short of filling the 16% gap ($1.55B) between Alberta and the national average. The proposed increase of $722 million over Budget 2025, while seemingly substantial is a starting point but not fully restorative. After adjusted for inflation and divided in real number terms based on historic enrolment growth, Alberta still ends up flattening the real per-student funding envelope. 

 “This education Budget, although sounding large on paper, once divided by the expanded student base, is not enough to put out the fire that the UCP government have set to Alberta’s education system. Right now, Alberta has the most underfunded education system in the country. Obviously a starved system welcomes any help offered; but we need to look at the bigger sustainable picture for our kids. Without restorative efforts on top of accelerating funds to keep pace with enrolment growth and inflation in real time, our students are left without the support and quality of education they deserve. ” - Medeana Moussa, Executive Director

The government’s own data on class size and complexity show that there are classrooms of up to 60 students in Alberta. They also showed that classes across every Alberta region and every school type have complexity factors. Alberta’s public education is in crisis and these challenges require long-term sustainable and robust commitment from the province.
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“The cumulative impacts of chronic defunding has harmed our students. It is outrageous that a prosperous province such as Alberta still ranks so low in the nation. While this Budget looks like Danielle Smith is bringing larger buckets of water to put out the fire, there are still very real children behind the numbers who are being left behind in this slow triage.” - Medeana Moussa

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Media inquiries:
Wing Li (she/her)
Communications Director
yegsosalberta [at] gmail.com