Asignatura: Historia de los países de habla inglesa / History of english-speaking countries. ✏ Quality education in Canada, its evolution and responses to the UN agreements. Objetivo 4: Quality education / Goal 4: Quality education By: Julia del Carmen Jurado Muñoz

1. Quality education in Canada, its evolution and responses to the UN
agreements.
By Julia del Carmen Jurado Muñoz
Education is key to fighting poverty. For this reason, it must be accessible for
every child all around the world. To accomplish this goal, the United Nations has
included education in the fourth place in its Sustainable Development Goals.
Education is important because it enables people to move upwards
socioeconomically in order to leave poverty. It helps to reduce inequalities, foster
tolerance and allows us to live in more peaceful societies.
Fortunately, for the last few years, education has progressed a lot, embracing
many hostile regions, and, moreover, reaching to girls in countries where they were not
allowed to attend schools. However, there is still a lot to be done. Due to the current
situation, Covid-19 has forced many institutions to close down and has left many
students without an education due to their lack of technological means. This situation
has affected especially the most vulnerable and marginalised, who cannot access their
classes or who do not have enough devices for all the members of the household.
Therefore, the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization) has set up initiatives to help children in their online classes. In March
2020, the Covid-19 Global Education Coalition was launched to help countries tackle
the situation and assist children and youth in need due to the unexpected educational
disruption. The main targets of this initiative are the following: assuring technological
assistance in countries with few approaches, finding solutions for accessibility
problems, ensuring responses and facilitating the return of students to schools when
they reopen, with the required sanitary methods to guarantee their wellbeing. In
addition, UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) has raised plans for less developed
countries.
In countries such as Canada, where there has always been a huge concern of
peace, order and good government, education has had a huge impact in society. During
the French Regime (1535 - 1763) education was integrated in everyone’s lives. Even
though the Catholic Church was the one in charge of teaching subjects such as religion,
mathematics or history, a lot of it was done at home, because most of the families
depended on their children to subsist. There they learned gardening, how to sew with a
spinning wheel or how to prepare the land to plant crops.

2. During the 17th century, various religious orders such as the Jesuits and the
Congregation of Notre Dame, were the ones who provided formal education for men
(with subjects like catechism or writing) who were helped to become priests or enter
other professions. This type of education was far for women, which did not go further
than religious instruction and needlework. Surprisingly, women in the countryside
received a better education due to the sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, who
set schools in rural areas and worked as teachers. Likewise, there were Catholic
missionaries who played an important role in informal education, by teaching boys and
girls about the Catholic religion and the French customs.
After the British Conquest, during the 18th century and the early 19th century,
the education system began to change, especially because the British government used
education as a way to promote the English Language, Protestantism and the British
customs.
During the early 19th century, politicians, educators and social leaders debated
about financing education and controlling the children who attended the educational
institutions. By the 1840s, the structure of the modern school systems was going to be
tackled in an emerging official agreement.
By the year 1837, there were a series of rebellions in which their leaders
supported that schools had to form the following generation of rising citizens. Instead
of using textbooks from the United States, they began implementing elements from the
Irish schools because Irish immigrants were the majority of the population at that time.
During the course of the 19th century, the development of agrarian, merchant
and industrial capitalism increased the economic insecurity. As well as gaining a lot of
wealth could be done rapidly, losing it as fast was also possible. For this reason, parents’
mentality changed. They decided to have less children and to invest more in their
education. By the end of the century, the number of parents who did not enroll their
children in the education system was a minority. However, the French Canadians were
an exception and did not carry out this.
By the 1960, the Department of Public Instruction in Québec managed the
schools, which consisted in controlling the textbooks that were used and the marking
criteria. The government decided to enhance the population’s educational level to have
a more qualified labour force.
In the last years, Canada’s education system has been marked by a language
conflict and has recently affected Québec anglophones and the children of immigrant
groups. Correspondingly, there had also been a distinction between boys and girls. In
the 19th century, the ideal representation of schools was dividing males and females in
different entrances, buildings and obviously classes. This was because, based on the

3. typical family structure of that time, people considered that women had to learn how to
cope with their household responsibilities and men had to be breadwinners.
At the end of the 19th century, women attended classes in which they were
taught how to cook and clean, while men learned about factory production. In relation
to the labour market, as women were considered to be wives and mothers, there were
not many job opportunities for them, so they were teachers, especially the ones who
were not married and did not have any children, contributed to the feminization of the
elementary school. At that time they were considered the best educators because they
had not fulfilled their mother instincts and would devote themselves to teaching and the
students.
In recent years, collaborations have been created to design educational
programs that respect cultural identity. This is because during the 19th century, the
Canadian Education System created separate schools for black people in places such as
Ontario and Nova Scotia and special regulations for Asians in British Columbia.
In the year 2015, the United Nations had a meeting as the one recently held in
which some goals for sustainable development were signed. Education was included
and the main objectives were the same as they are nowadays (taking into consideration
that these methods did not include the Covid-19 implications).
And why is this? Overall, education has not changed in the past five years.
Moreover, with the Covid-19 crisis, more children and teenagers are prone to leave
school or will not be able to attend their online classes.
In the Year 2018, Canada wrote a Voluntary National Review. It explains how
Canada committed to implement the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals in
national actions, achievements and challenges. However, it is still a work in progress,
because it is estimated that women, youth and the elderly, the LGBTQ2 community or
newcomers to Canada among others, are more prone to suffer from discrimination,
poverty and social exclusion. With this in mind, this country is working hard to
overcome these issues, by having a more inclusive education system and by granting
scholarships to families with less resources.
Due to the current situation, Canada’s government has established a ‘Covid- 19
guidance for schools from Kindergarten to Grade 12’. The main objective of this
guidance is to make clear that schools play an important role in the life of the youth.
They help them grow and mature for their adulthood, so if they cannot attend their
classes due to a long - term shutdown as the one in march, a huge educational gap would
be present in their lives. For this reason, it is important that the basic education should
be in person. Many children who suffer from poverty, domestic violence, abuse or
disabilities, are predisposed to suffer more from this government decision.

4. There are certain actions that Canada is managing that are taken in order to
avoid any infection. The most important one is trying to prevent any transmission in
the classroom. Therefore, class arrangements should be changed, the school must be
very aware of the number of students that are there and how close they are one to
another. In case there is any interaction among them, writing it down or taking it into
consideration would be very useful to control everyone.
In addition, people will be continuously informed about the Public Health
advice, explained the importance of hygiene (as implementing a schedule for frequent
hand hygiene and providing access to facilities where to wash their hands) and the use
of masks, as well as posting throughout the school’s facilities signage that is appropriate
for different ages and abilities.
Furthermore, if someone within the school’s area has any symptom, the main
preventive method that will be taken will be the isolation of that someone for at least
fourteen days at their house.
Following these methods will be key to assure the security of every single person who
is involved in the education system, teachers and non-academic staff.
From my point of view, education in Canada has evolved for the better. As an
eighteen-year-old university student able to attend classes, I think it is crucial to inform
everyone about the importance of Covid-19. As a matter of fact, it is equally important
to be aware of the symptoms children can have, which differ from those from adults
and the elderly. For this reason, talks must be given at all educational levels, to raise
awareness everyone about the effects of not wearing a mask and not using
hydroalcoholic gel can have.
Having people who have had the virus and still have after-effects give speeches
is one of the best ways to increase awareness people, especially the youngest, about this
situation. Teenagers are given talks about many different topics every single year at
their high-schools but they turn a blind eye to what they are told because it does not
cause an impact. However, if people who have suffered from these situations gave their
testimonies, it would have more effect.
As a society, something we can do is to prioritize education in policies and
practice, make our governments sign commitments to assure free primary education for
every single child.
Additionally, even if this society has evolved a lot in the last years, there is still
a lot to be done. Having equal education for both men and women is the best way to
evolve. Due to this, future generations will grow with different values and they will be
the ones to really change the world we live in.

5. Educational wise, being able to assure it to every child is crucial. And with this,
Canada is an extraordinary example. It has been able to break with gender and racial
barriers that have been created during many years. And it is still fighting for a fairer
and equality-based education.
In a nutshell, as an eighteen-year-old woman, I think plenty of actions could
have been done better. We, young people, tend to forget the jeopardy of this situation
we are living in (Covid-19 and gender inequality among others), and easily forget to
follow the most important rules or be conscious of what is happening. It is true that we
are feeling that our youth is being taken away, but we should bear in mind that the more
we know, the stronger we will be. Hence, the importance of our education.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
COVID-19 guidance for schools, from Kindergarten to Grade 12. (2020, September
30). Retrieved from: https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-
novel-coronavirus-infection/health-professionals/guidance-schools-childcare-
programs.html#a8
Gaffield, C., & Millette, D. (2013, July 15). History of Education in Canada. The
Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from:
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/history-of-education
Sustainable Development Goals Knowledge Platform. (n.d.). United Nations.
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/memberstates/canada
United Nations. (2020, November). United Nations, Quality Education. Retrieved
from: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/education/