Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter is accusing some of the province's school boards of purposely spreading fear about the NDP government's latest bid to curb rising education costs.

"They really have to stop bringing forward these dramatic scenarios with job cuts when they know that we would never allow those to happen," Dexter said Sunday after a funding announcement in Sydney.

"I just think it's terribly irresponsible to be creating the kind of fear that they are creating by bringing forward these scenarios."

Dexter was referring to the fallout from an Education Department planning document that instructed all eight school boards to prepare for a possible $196 million in budget cuts over the next three years. That amounts to a 22 per cent cut.

Since the document was distributed last October, some school boards have come forward to complain that they will be forced to lay off hundreds of teachers and teaching assistants.

The Nova Scotia School Board Association has said the proposed reduction would mean the closure of 70 schools and the loss of 4,000 jobs.

Dexter said the boards should be talking with the department about containing costs rather than preaching doom and frightening parents for no good reason.

"Their reactions to the suggestion that they should be accountable for the money that we send them has been to create these scenarios that are clearly intolerable ... and the provincial government would not allow to happen," he said.

"It makes no sense for them to go out and consult on plans that will never happen. They need to do what we asked them to do."

Dexter said the reality is that the province's schools have 30,000 fewer students than they did 10 years ago, but education costs have risen 40 per cent in the same period.

He said the boards should be looking at reducing fees paid for consultants and professional development rather than focusing exclusively on cutting teaching positions and blaming the province in the process.

This month, the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board issued a report suggesting it faced a possible $34-million cut over the next three years, which could result in the loss 283 teachers and 74 educational assistants.

The Cape Breton-Victoria board followed up with a report that said up to 277 teaching positions would have to be eliminated to deal with the potential loss of $25.5 million.

Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil has said rural schools with smaller populations would be hit hard if the government follows through with the planning document.

Education Minister Ramona Jennex has said it is too early in the process to talk about cutting jobs and closing schools.