Alberta Premier Jason Kenney defended his government's decision to temporarily remove some education funding which has affected transportation workers and educational assistants.

Kenney says while the changes do affect some, a large number of non-teaching positions will continue to work during school closures due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

"Speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, mental health workers and physiotherapists, all of whom will continue to provide specialized supports and services for students. In addition to which, the program unit funding, which is for younger special needs kids, continues to flow to school authorities so they can tailor their services to continue supporting the most vulnerable students."

Kenney says it wasn't a unilateral decision to remove $128 million from the education budget to help in the fight against COVID-19.

"The Minister of Education was contacted after the closure of the schools, by many school boards and superintendents across the province saying that there were large numbers of staff and employees who were no longer working. In particular they indicated school bus contractors, many support services and many teaching assistants."

Kenney says people need to keep things in perspective when it comes to temporary cuts to education funding.

He says there are many out there facing a much more uncertain future than those laid off through re-prioritizing education spending during the pandemic.

"Tens of thousands of small businesses have closed. They don't know if they're going to be able to open their doors when this is all over. Hundreds of thousands of people in the private sector have been laid off. They don't know if they're going to have jobs coming back. These folks in the government and the education sector, will almost without exception, be coming back to jobs when the schools re-open. They have that certainty and they also have access to the extraordinary supports for income that are being provided by both the federal and provincial governments."

Some critics argue the layoffs, which affect substitute teachers, school bus drivers, educational assistants who work with special-needs students and others, amount to more than 20,000 workers.