Question

1. School Boards throughout the province of British Columbia are being required to upgrade their buildings to withstand serious earthquakes. Does increasing the earthquake standards on school buildings necessarily make schools a better place? What are some things that are likely to be sacrificed by doing this?

Answer 1

The school boards deciding to upgrade their buildings to earthquake resistant ones would require funds. The sources of funds would be either from the school funds or from the government grants. Either way, it is causing an opportunity cost. The funds meant for another use would be put in this for use. This would lead to sacrificing of other uses since their resources would be put in use here.

If the resources are taken from the school funds, the sacrifice would be in form of lesser pay to teachers, higher fees of students or at times poor technology for the students which might result in poor results. Less sports equipment or lesser facilities in terms of extracurricular could be some examples.

Another could be if the funds used are from grants by government or the government spending. In such a case , facilities provided by government like healthcare, roads railways etc would be on less focus when the resources would be diverted to the school buildings which could hamper the growth of the economy.

(You can comment for doubts)