Saskatchewan educators made their voices heard earlier this week as they held a rally in front of the Saskatchewan Legislature.

That came from what they felt was an underfunding of education in the province from the most recent budget.

Saskatchewan Teachers Federation President Samantha Becotte says that teachers have been burdened by the lack of funding.

"We are experiencing just another year of chronic underfunding in education and Saskatchewan and teachers have been shouldering those burdens for too long and we are hearing from them that they are feeling burnt out. They are exhausted and we can no longer fill the gaps that have been created from underfunding in previous years."

The rally managed to bring out more people than predicted, with organizers happy with the turnout.

"It is still buzzing around the rally. I think we felt more than we had originally expected and we've been hearing from people that education is a priority," said Becotte, "But to see close to 3500 people there is probably more than most of us expected."

The provincial government put out a statement shortly after the rally, saying that the teacher's voices were heard and they would be working with school divisions.

Becotte says she hopes to see more actions from the province.

"We've been making our voices heard through meetings over the entire school year and years and past, and yet there's no change in course and it's one thing to say voices are heard, but their actions tell us that students and education are not a priority of this government until we see a real investment put into public education. We're going to continue to have our voices heard."  

That includes increased funding, with an amount being determined through a study.

"We put out a number earlier in the year before the budget was announced and it came from the Fraser Institute," said Becotte, "Saying that we had a $400 million gap in education because of a decade-long spree of cuts to education funding or increases that didn't meet inflation or enrollment growth." 

While Becotte recognizes that number is unlikely to come all at once, she hopes to see progress made.

"I think it's a little bit shortsighted to say that we can just make a small adjustment in the fall when we're already so far behind, so we would like to see somewhere closer to that $400 million mark. I had told the Minister, we didn't expect to see it in one year. We know that it's a big number but this government has the money. They have a billion-dollar surplus."