Students will have access to more instructional time and teachers will receive more professional development opportunities as a result of amendments passed in the Yukon legislature last week.

The Act to Amend the Education Act will also enable school council elections to be held in the spring.

"These amendments are an important step in reaching our goals to improve student success,” Education Minister Scott Kent said last Wednesday.

"We now have increased student-teacher time, more time to deliver training to our teachers, and better organized processes to ensure newly-elected school council members have appropriate time to learn their roles prior to the beginning of the school year.”

Previously, Yukon students were scheduled to be in school for fewer hours per year than students in many other jurisdictions in Canada.

The amendments allow for an increase of 15 hours of instructional time per year so that students will receive 950 hours of instructional time annually.

Beginning in the 2013/14 school year, teachers will receive an additional 15 hours of professional development time annually.

This will enable the Department of Education to ensure that all teachers have equal opportunity to receive training and continue to employ best practices for the benefit of all students.

Until now, the Education Act required that school council members be elected in the fall, after the school year had already begun.

With the amendments having passed, school council members will now be elected in May, prior to the beginning of the school year.