Made in B.C.: a history of postsecondary education in British Columbia

Intersecting the enduring theme of providing British Columbians with greater social and geographical access to postsecondary education is a single event - John Macdonald's 1962 report, 'Higher education in British Columbia and a plan for the future' - that dramatically altered the [British Columbia] BC postsecondary landscape. In 1960, public postsecondary education in BC consisted essentially of: (1) the University of British Columbia; (2) Victoria College; (3) a few vocational schools; (4) a few special purpose institutions; and (5) school districts offering continuing education and Grade 13. The public's educational aspirations were rising, especially in the poorly served non-metropolitan regions of the province. The leading edge of the baby boom generation was approaching postsecondary education. Macdonald's report became the rallying point for action. By 1965, Simon Fraser University ('BC's instant university') and the University of Victoria (emerging from Victoria College) were enrolling students, a decade of establishing community colleges had begun, and federal funding for postsecondary technical and vocational schools led to the establishment of [British Columbia Institute of Technology] BCIT and additional vocational schools - the vocational schools started merging with colleges in 1971.

The BC college system, modeled on the comprehensive two-year colleges with substantial university transfer offerings found in the western USA, is distinctive with Alberta in the Canadian context. The colleges were originally governed through school districts and relied on a substantial contribution from local property taxes. From the early 1960s to the late 1980s, the BC postsecondary system expanded rapidly but more or less along the same trajectory. Since the late 1980s, however, the consensus about the role and mission of various institutions has eroded. Beginning with the creation of the University of Northern British Columbia in 1990, followed by the transition of five two-year colleges into degree-granting university colleges, and the introduction of baccalaureate degrees in applied subjects across the college and institute system, the expansion of degree-granting programs has emerged as a powerful theme since the 1990s. The range of institutional types expanded with the establishment of some distance education and aboriginal institutions, and with the creation of three special purpose universities: the short-lived Technical University of BC (now [Simon Fraser University] SFU Surrey), Royal Roads, and Thompson Rivers. Within government, the original hands-on approach to colleges and the hands-off approach to universities is gradually converging.

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