Silence on the Western Front:
Women in Post-Secondary Education in British Columbia

BY WENDY BURTON

Access to post-secondary education for women in British Columbia entered a new phase with the advent of the regional (or community) college system, begun in the late 60s. By 1978, 21 community colleges had been established with the express aim to improve access for those students who had been traditionally barred from pursuing university education: women visible minorities and those whose incomes or economic status did not allow for fees and the expenses of living four or five years without a pay cheque.

Ten years ago, grim statistics showed that college students were still white, male, Christian, and of English or European family origin.

At the same time, the Canada Student Loan program was extended to the college system and a safety net of in-house bursaries and emergency loans was implemented in the hopes that more than a narrow percentage of middle and upper middle class students (mostly men) would achieve some level of post-secondary education. As of today, the system has endured several years of what is locally referred to as restraint, not to mention that B.C. has one of the lowest per capita expenditures on education in Canada. What has been the situation of women and their access to community colleges in the last ten years?

Ten years ago, women were identified as a target group for affirmative action in the college system. Grim statistics, gathered in the first decade of the community college system, indicated that the same demographic profile was found in colleges as was well established in universities, except that the students were older. They were still white, male, Christian, and of English or European family origin. Many career programs, admittedly the track for students wishing to get in on the economic boom in B.C., had few women present; the enrollment in what were called non-traditional occupations was almost exactly what it had been for several generations.

Women were not found in welding or carpentry programs (with the exception of a parts counterman) but were instead clustered in the traditional pink collar ghettoes of secretary, daycare worker, nurse's aide and key punch operators. The government was forced, by several embarrassingly high profile reports to parliament and numerous presentations to the Ministry of Labour, to announce a plan for improvement of women's access to post-secondary education in the college system.

Silence sur le front occidental : les femmes et l'enseignement postsecondaire en Colombie-Britannique

PAR WENDY BURTON

Il y a dix ans, le gouvernement de la Colombie-Britannique fut obligé d'élaborer un plan pour que les femmes puissent accéder plus facilement à des études postsecondaires. Il accorda aux collèges des subventions pour que ceux-ci puissent créer un comité sur le Statut de la femme et un programme d'accès pour les femmes, tous deux devant être intégrés dans le budget normal en trois ans. Nombre de collèges se contentèrent d'utiliser l'argent à d'autres fins.

En outre, au bout des trois ans, les collèges connaissaient des restrictions budgétaires. En 1984, seuls trois programmes d'accès pour les femmes existaient encore dans le système et certaines dispositions qui avaient permis aux femmes de pouvoir prendre des cours, soit décentralisation des locaux, frais d'inscription moins élevés, horaires souples, disparaissaient.

Les programmes subventionnés par la Planification de l'emploi relancèrent certains autres programmes affaiblis, mais de façon générale ils ne permirent d'acquérir que des compétences de courte durée, impossibles à appliquer à d'autres domaines. De plus, ils privaient d'argent des secteurs d'enseignement beaucoup plus valables. En Colombie-Britannique on n'a pas non plus tenu compte dans le système collégial de l'équité en matière d'emploi.

On ne fait pas état de l'équité des sexes dans ce qui porte sur l'embauche et le congédiement, et il n'existe aucune protection contre la discrimination catégorique. Les femmes travaillent surtout à mi-temps dans des secteurs traditionnels (anglais et sciences sociales, par exemple) et n'ont guère de possibilités d'avancement. Il leur est aussi difficile de prendre un congé pédagogique. Si on veut que la situation s'améliore, il faut absolument que le gouvernement passe des lois. L'action affirmative n'est pas seulement un idéal philosophique, mais aussi une nécessité pratique.

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