The 1970s began with the October Crisis in Quebec. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act to deal with an apprehended state of insurrection arising from the kidnapping of a British diplomat and a Quebec cabinet minister by members of the Front de liberation du Québec (FLQ) terrorist group.
In 1971, Peter Lougheed led the Progressive Conservative Party to a landmark election victory in Alberta, bringing an end to 35 years of Social Credit government. The change of government signaled a change in Alberta from a predominantly rural to a largely urban society centred in the major cities of Calgary and Edmonton and in the smaller cities of Red Deer, Medicine Hat and Lethbridge.
Economically, the 1970s were prosperous times for Alberta. Because of the OPEC oil embargo in 1973, oil prices quadrupled and the resulting royalties swelled the province's coffers. The Lougheed government attempted to diversify the provincial economy, making it less dependent on agriculture and petroleum and, therefore, less susceptible to boom-and-bust economic cycles.
In 1976, the province established the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, which was intended to put aside money for a rainy day. The Fund was placed under the control of the provincial cabinet.
Alberta's growing wealth caused some friction between Alberta and the other provinces. This was the era of the legendary Alberta bumper sticker "Let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark."
The 1970s began fairly calmly with respect to developments in education. In 1970, Premier Harry Strom oversaw the passage of a new School Act, which was based on considerable consultation across the province. Dr Timothy Byrne, who had helped draft the legislation, became the founding president of Athabasca University.
As previously noted, the School Act of 1970 gave new prominence to the role of the superintendent. In the early days, provincially appointed school inspectors had overseen teachers and pupils as well as school facilities. They traveled from one rural schoolhouse to the next preparing reports. By contrast, school boards in urban centres such as Calgary and Edmonton hired their own superintendents. With the passage of the School Act of 1970, superintendents in rural school divisions became employees of the school board. In one more way, rural school organization came to resemble that of urban schools.
In 1972, the newly elected Progressive Conservative government dissolved the Alberta Human Resources Research Council.
In terms of educational ideas, the 1970s distilled the challenges of the previous decade. The 1970s were still a time of student activism and unrest. Radical thinkers from around the world energized educational discussions and tested traditional assumptions about education. Among these thinkers were Ivan Illich, affiliated with the idea of deschooling society; A S Neill, who advocated alternative schooling; and Paulo Freire, who championed pedagogy for the oppressed.
In 1972, Alberta established a fourth university, Athabasca University. Initially located in Edmonton, the university was moved in 1984 to new facilities in Athabasca. Athabasca was an open university whose mandate was to use educational technology to provide distance-education opportunities to adult learners.
In some quarters, the 1970s was a time of unconcealed optimism about the potential of education to improve society. The decade's full confidence in public education is exemplified by Dr Harold Baker, a contributor to the Worth Report, who served as dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Calgary from 1962 to 1970 and later as a scholar-in-residence at the University of Alberta. Baker (1974, 16) stated that "public education through schools, imaginatively conceived and socially dedicated, could have a crucial effect on the quality of our future."
The report of the Commission on Educational Planning (The Worth Report), which appeared in 1972, examined possibilities for the future of education in Alberta. The report, which was extremely broad in scope, considered early, elementary and secondary education as well as higher and further education. Named for its commissioner, Dr Walter H Worth, the Worth Report was the product of extensive public consultations. Worth challenged Albertans to choose their future and the kind of education needed to support that future.
The report described two potential futures: a "person-centered society" and a "second-stage industrial society." In essence, the report asked Albertans to decide between humanistic ideals, epitomized by individual self-actualization, on the one hand, and continued industrial development, focused on an abundance of goods and services, on the other.
The Worth Report was widely criticized for its sweeping recommendations for educational reform along with its threatening counterculture rationale, which was viewed as a throwback to the 1960s. Evans (1979) attributes the widespread implementation of early childhood education programs through the province in the 1970s and the establishment of Early Childhood Services (ECS) within the Department of Education to the influence of the Worth Report. Likewise, Zachariah and O'Neill (1990) ascribe to the Worth Report Alberta's decision to abolish compulsory grade 12 departmental examinations in 1973, an event that signaled public confidence in the competence of Alberta teachers.
In 1972, the government established a ministry of advanced education, headed by James Foster. The creation of separate portfolios for education and advanced education indicated the extent to which postsecondary education was expanding in the province. In 1975, the government established the portfolio of Advanced Education and Manpower, a development that recognized the link between higher education and manpower training and coordinated apprenticeship training and other types of higher education.
Alberta's college system came into its own in the 1970s (Berghofer and Vladicka 1980). Alberta's success in establishing a coordinated provincial postsecondary system was a clear manifestation of public confidence in education. The system came to include universities, public colleges, technical institutes and vocational colleges as well as special-purpose institutions such as the Banff Centre of Fine Arts. The Alberta Council on Admissions and Transfer was established in 1974 to, among other tasks, produce a guide for the transfer of academic credits from one of Alberta's postsecondary institutions to another.
However, there were limits to the extent to which the province could coordinate postsecondary education. In early 1976, the minister of advanced education, Dr Bert Hohol, introduced the Adult Education Act, which he later withdrew when the bill drew severe criticism from, among others, the universities, which feared that the proposed legislation would enable the government to intrude into their institutional autonomy, something they viewed as intolerable.
The decade was an era of student activism in many parts of the world, especially on university campuses. Even Alberta's high school students were demanding some say in their learning experiences.
The perceived excesses of students provoked a reaction from some MLAs and others who felt uncomfortable with aspects of the Worth Report.
In 1977, Alberta Education published the Harder Report, which represented a turning away from the humanistic viewpoints expressed just a few years earlier in the Worth Report and a return to a more traditional approach to education (Taylor 2001). The philosophies of education articulated in these two reports clashed over such matters as the purpose of education, the content of the curriculum and the way in which that content should be taught. Unlike the Worth Report, which was the product of extensive public consultation, the Harder Report was a discussion paper produced by one Department of Education official, Dr J Harder. Also unlike the Worth Report, the Harder Report confined its scope to elementary and secondary education. The central thrust of the Harder Report was that the purpose of schooling is to prepare young people to participate in society (Evans 1979). The difference in tone between the two reports, issued just five years apart, reflects the struggle that was going on within the province with respect to the purpose of education.
On the whole, the Harder Report was less optimistic than the Worth Report about the potential of education. Zachariah and O'Neill (1990) typify the Harder Report as one embodiment of the back-to-basics approach to curriculum. The report, with its emphasis on the value of economic productivity, could also be characterized as a conservative backlash (McIntosh and Hodysh 1992).
In 1972, most Alberta teachers possessed a degree. By 1977, Alberta teachers required a four-year bachelor of education degree, which included an extended practicum, to obtain initial certification (Keeler 1973). Having been required to earn a four-year degree, Alberta teachers increasingly began demanding a voice in shaping schooling arrangements and educational policy. Based on their professional expertise, for example, teachers argued that departmental examinations should be abolished.
As the decade progressed, it became increasingly apparent that some Albertans had not shared in the benefits of public education. In the 1970s, school boards were responsible for providing services to such exceptional students as they could. Because school boards were not legally required to include special needs students in regular classrooms, those students were often assigned to separate classrooms. A serious problem in providing services for special needs students was the lack of specialist teachers capable of diagnosing and addressing their learning needs.
Given these circumstances, some parents turned to private schools as a means of educating their handicapped offspring. Others became intensely involved in the education of their children and resorted to political lobbying and legal action to secure the benefits of public education. In 1978, the Supreme Court of Alberta dealt with the Carriere case, which prepared the way for the mandatory practice of mainstreaming special needs students in classrooms, a practice that came to prevail in the 1980s (Gall 1993).
During the 1970s, awareness grew that another group, Alberta's native people, had not shared in the benefits of public education. Natives in Alberta territories ceded their claims to land in three treaties: Treaty 6 in 1876, Treaty 7 in 1877 and Treaty 8 in 1899 (Carney 1978). By signing these treaties, the federal government accepted responsibility for educating native students, a responsibility that it carried out by establishing residential schools. According to the Indian Act of 1876, the declared purpose of residential schools was to assimilate native students into the mainstream population (Carney 1978). By the 1970s, it had become apparent that efforts to assimilate native students had been seriously misguided and had resulted in appalling social problems. As they became sensitized to the plight of Alberta's native population, some educators began advocating that the time had come to set past injustices aright.
In 1979, the Alberta Federation of Home and School Associations proudly celebrated its 50th anniversary (Lumgair 1979).
By the end of the decade, issues surrounding private schools were surfacing, foreshadowing the debate that would occur in the 1980s. In 1978, the case of Regina v. Wiebe over the compulsory attendance of Holdeman Mennonites occasioned a change in Alberta's School Act that permitted the establishment of a new category of private schools (Bezeau 1989, 127–28). The case presented a variety of arguments as to why private schools should be established and funded on the basis of religious tolerance (Wagner 1995). This focus on private schools and private-school funding gave hope that a healthy pluralism and tolerance might develop in Alberta.
Summary
On the whole, the 1970s was a prosperous time for the province, and public education shared in the affluence. Early in the decade, the Progressive Conservatives succeeded the Social Credits as Alberta's governing party. The beginning of the decade was marked by great optimism about the potential of education. Alberta's system of postsecondary education, in particular, matured during this decade. During this period, many school jurisdictions developed early childhood services programs. The abolition of grade 12 departmental examinations communicated the message that Alberta's teaching profession was expert and professional. Some educators during this period became sensitized to the needs of groups and individuals—such as students with special needs and aboriginal students—who had previously been deprived of the benefits of public education. By the end of the decade, most people felt that the public education system, though not entirely adequate, could be improved and made more inclusive.
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