The Effect of 'Restraints' on Women's Education

by Mary Lynn Stewart and
Lynn Bueckert

L'EFFET DES "RESTRICTIONS" SUR L'ÉDUCATION DES FEMMES EN COLOMBIE-BRITANNIQUE

Cet article est un bref résumé d'un important projet de recherches mené au nom de l'Institut canadien de recherches sur les femmes (ICREF), pour étudier les effets qu'ont sur l'éducation des femmes les "restrictions" imposées par le gouvernement de la Colombie-Britannique. Le projet de recherches fait le point de la situation dans quatre grands domaines: centralisation de l'éducation; emploi; aide financière aux étudiants; inscription dans les établissements postsecondaires. Les conclusions indiquent que ces "restrictions" ont gravement nui aux femmes, surtout a celles qui vivent dans des régions isolées ou qui ont des besoins spéciaux d'éducation. En fait, l'effet global semble être qu'il devient de plus en plus difficile aux femmes de faire des études supérieures dans la province de la Colombie-Britannique. .

BACKGROUND

On July 7, 1983, under the guise of "economic restraint", the newly re-elected Social Credit government in B. C. announced a legislative package of 26 bills. This package severely attacked the rights of many, proposed massive funding cuts and in some cases, "privatizing" of social services and education.

Soon after, in November 1983, the annual conference of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women/Institut Canadien de recherches sur les femmes (CRIAW/Icref) was held. The B.C. participants in the Conference and interested participants from other parts of Canada met to consider the B.C. situation and to respond. The meeting decided to initiate a research project to monitor the on-going effects of so-called "restraint" policies on women and delegated responsibility for the project to Mary Lynn Stewart, the B.C. representative to the Board of Directors of CRIAW/Icref. Within the month, a committee was formed and decided that the project should focus on the effects of cutbacks on women in post-secondary education.

In the summer of 1984 a questionnaire was mailed to as many informants within the post-secondary institutions as possible. The institutions ranged from relatively academically oriented university transfer colleges through mixed academic and vocational colleges to technical institutes. The questionnaire was designed to reveal trends in the academic years 1979/80 to 1982/83 which would establish base line data and enable us to analyze the impact of the legislated "restraint" which began in the summer of 1983.

In addition to information from the questionnaires, a researcher, Dr. Janet Patterson, diligently analyzed information in the Ministry of Education's annual publications, generically entitled the B.C. Post-secondary Statistics. For both the questionnaires and the data published by the Ministry of Education, it became disturbingly clear that data was unavailable or irretrievable, especially where gender and age were concerned. The lack of data has made it difficult to do a thorough analysis of differences in employment and program funding by gender. Regardless, we pursued the answer to our central question-what exactly did "restraint" mean for women in the colleges and institutes?

CENTRALIZATION

While the government funding cuts to education were done in the name of economic recovery, they were motivated by the ideological belief that education should meet the needs of the market place, rather than the needs of the individual. Prior to 1980, pluralism, service to the individual and the community, and access to education were the focus. After 1980, control, uniformity, centralization and funding reductions became the order of the day. For example, as part of the 1983 legislative package the Minister could cancel any program or course at any college or institute. The Cabinet was empowered to appoint all board members to college and institute councils. As a result of this latter measure, the number of women on boards dropped from 35% to 28.7% of positions between 1981 and 1985.