Dear Editor:
"Education for the marketplace" is the slogan by which public education is being attacked and dismantled by corporate powers, but education is not the art of training and subjugating people to serve the profit of others.
This attack profoundly affects the thinking, the philosophy, the very future of our children and the world they grow up in. No one stops to think how hard it was to win the fight for free, non-sectarian public schools in our country.
When 10,000 citizens petitioned in 1831 in support of separation of church and state (the church was the biggest landowner and controlled the schools), they were refused in no uncertain terms by the Family Compact, the government of the day. Their refusal was the prime cause of the rebellion of 1837. Protest rallies were held the length and breadth of Lower Canada, expressing their support for the Patriots led by Papineau, but met defeat when 6,000 British troops marched against them, burning villages as they went.
At the same time, William Lyon Mackenzie and his Reformers in Upper Canada fared no better, between getting their dates for action confused and having their more conservative members turn traitor. Mackenzie never did see the great convention in York (Toronto) which was to proclaim responsible government. He fled to the United States, but his friends Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews were hanged and their bodies consigned to Potters' Field.
It was amazing that just 14 years later, in 1852, Lieutenant-Governor Wilmot of New Brunswick opened a provincial exhibition saying: "it is unpardonable that any child should grow up in our country without the benefit of at least a common school education. It is the duty not only of the parent but of the people. The property of the country should be to educate the children of the country. I want to hear the tax collector calling at my door. I want the children of the poor in the remote settlements to receive the advantages now almost confined to their more fortunate brethren and sisters of the towns."
British Columbia's historical development was quite different from the other provinces, and the first School Act of 1865 acceded to the popular demand of "a free non-sectarian school open to all classes in the community." This was passed by the Vancouver Island Legislature seven years before B.C. joined Confederation.
Canadians are known as a compassionate people. This is a time to be a passionate people, a time to go on the offensive, to insist that every child has a right to free quality education with adequate funding provided by senior governments that profit from the selloff of our natural resources.
Finally, a reminder to the B.C. school trustees of their discussion paper of 1996, "A New Agenda for Education in British Columbia," in which they said, "We think it's clear that the agenda for public policy for education can no longer revolve around a single item - 'How much does it cost' - it must be about improving education and about doing a better job of meeting children's needs."
Betty Griffin, Burnaby
