Educational Law in the Ontario School System
Educational Law in the Ontario School System
As a student studying the law, I have always had a strong passion to bring in more equality and democracy into our society. I would like to share my views on the current education system of Canada specifically in Ontario. I was very surprised with the outcome of education system has gone through in a result of the bills that have been passed since 1995. The Ontario Public School System is meant to provide all students with an equal opportunity to maximize their educational potential, but the lack of responsibility the government has taken has failed to provide that.
On January 13th, 1997, the Ontario government introduced Bill 104, the Fewer Boards Act. It changed educational opportunity in drastic ways, such as, diminishing and removing the responsibilities of locally elected trustees, transferring their duties to government appointed commissioners, and paving the way for an under funding of public education. The Bill sets up a centralized board for controlling the education budgets, contracts, funds, and spending decisions. This scarcely follows a democratic procedure, but instead it has given the government absolute power. And, as we all know Public Education is the cornerstone of a democratic society, and every student requires the right to have a stable, safe, and qualified environment to learn. I feel that the local trustee’s should handle education rather than the government since the trustee’s are elected by the community, they are specially trained to focus on all aspects of improving education, and being a board for education in a district allows them to work in the best interest for our future and of that community. The government has many responsibilities, and controlling the education system will diminish the quality of it.
Bill 160 has similar traits to Bill 104; they both centralizes control of the education policy and financing in the hands of the provincial government. The passing of the law has built up hostility within the people working or participating in the sector including, parents and students. It caused a massive strike for two weeks. This bill allowed the Tories to slash the $14 billion education budget to $700million a year. This also lead to the lay off of about 10 000 teachers. They also rewrote the curriculum to make only 4 years of high school instead of 5, because it a cheaper and...