Quote:
Originally Posted by Antigonish
I'm always intrigued by the school system in Newfoundland. Because it was still a British Dominion of it's own until 1949 things developed differently there than down here in the Maritimes despite us being "cousins" of sorts. The Catholic vs Public system, boys vs girls schools, collegiate prep vs trades focused curriculums. In the Maritimes we didn't really have that and the only two areas that sort of did at one time was Halifax and Sydney.
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Not an expert on this by any account, but here's I what recall.
When I started school the religious-based system was still in place. The protestant schools (in St. John's, at least) had consolidated under one board and had largely become secular. The Catholics continued to operate their own schools, but had moved to lay people for teachers.
They held a referendum in 95. The people voted to abolish the system, and establish a government controlled system. I remember in the years that followed there was a considerable shuffling on students between schools, as they tried to move to a neighbourhood school model.
One interesting thing about this change, was while government took over operating the schools, the churches still owned the school land and buildings. This became a problem just recently, with the Catholic church having to sell off much of it's properties to pay SA victim settlements, so the province was forced to buy up a lot of the schools in short order.