The British Columbia government is preparing legislation to end the dispute with the province's teachers, Education Minister George Abbott said today.

"We don't appear to be any closer to the resolution of this dispute than we were one year ago," said Abbott, noting there had been 78 bargaining sessions between the B.C. Teachers Federation and the B.C. Public School Employers' Association but no progress.

"It is the students of British Columbia who are paying the price for no end to this dispute and I'm very concerned about that," he said. "I'm not prepared to let this go on any further."

Abbott said he has asked ministry staff to put together a bill or bills over the weekend to deal with the situation and plans to recommend a package for the government to legislate next week.

The minister made the comments following the release of a report by Trevor Hughes, an assistant deputy minister in the Ministry of Labour, Citizens' Services and Open Government.

Hughes found that a negotiated settlement is unlikely. The BCTF viewed the government's commitment to a zero wage increase as a "wall" that made progress at the bargaining table impossible, Hughes wrote.

BCTF President Susan Lambert is scheduled to talk to the media at 2 p.m. in Vancouver.

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Find him on Twitter or reach him here.