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The first government effort made toward publicly funding schools.
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Acts were passed that guaranteed technical education to orphaned children and also required that teachers be certified.
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District School Act signalled the first official action in government-aided schooling. (one school per district with payment of tuition)
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The Common School Act was passed; the first major step in providing mass schooling for the “common” people in Upper Canada. (Ontario)
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The School Act for the United Province of Canada (Upper & Lower Canada) was passed, creating non-denominational public schools for Upper Canada that were not oriented toward any particular religion.
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Egerton Ryerson became chief superintendent of education in Upper Canada. -
Ryerson drafted a bill that became the Common School Act. The first major piece of education-related legislation in the history of Upper Canada.
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Egerton Ryerson opened the first normal school (teacher training institution) in Ontario in order to facilitate the better training of teachers. -
Ryerson passed a second Common School Act, which allowed school tax to be levied on all property and provided free admission of children to schools.
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Seperate schools (Catholic) also gained status as permanent school boards in Upper Canada, after years of struggle by the Catholic minority in the province.
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The Ontario School Act was passed, which legislated that free, compulsory elementary schooling in government-inspected schools was to be provided for all.
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The Education Act made school attendance compulsory for children between the ages of 8 and 14, and “common schools” were renamed as “public schools.”
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English was made a mandatory subject, and five years later this was extended to making it the language of instruction.
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Attendance at residential schools became mandatory, with fines or imprisonment being legally threatened if Aboriginal children failed to attend.
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Regulation 17 was issued, which limited French instruction to the first two years of elementary schooling.
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One hour of French instruction per day was offcially allowed.
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Legislation passed to permit instruction in French at the elementary and secondary levels.
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University degrees became required for admission to teachers’ colleges.
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The last segregated school for Blacks in Ontario, located in Merlin (near Chatham), was closed. -
The National Indian Brotherhood called for an end to the federal control of Aboriginal schooling, and residential schools eventually began to close. -
The Canadian government negotiated the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, which agreed to pay out a sum of $2 billion as a compensation package to former residential school students.