Teachers in a British Columbia town had a problem they couldn’t solve, so they called University of B.C. education professor Charles Ungerleider.
He was told that young male students were dropping out of high school to drive logging trucks. The teenagers wouldn’t return to school because they were making double or triple the teachers’ wages.
It is a classic problem for rural schools whose dropout rates tends to be higher than urban schools, Ungerleider said at the recent 11th National Congress on Rural Education in Canada.
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He also told the Saskatoon conference that he had no easy answer for the dropouts other than to point out the regular cycle of layoffs that accompany most resource-based industries.
He said part of the problem is that rural parents often support their children’s decisions to get jobs at a younger age.
The value of education is easier to see in a city where there is more economic diversity.
Resources are also an issue in smaller rural schools that are unable to offer the same number of courses as a city school.
“Knowledge economy jobs are concentrated in the city,” Ungerleider said, despite the promise that computers would allow people to work from anywhere.
Technology lags mean that 20 percent of rural schools are using dial-up internet connections for distance courses, while only five percent of urban schools are stuck in the slow lane.
While rural students tend to leave school sooner and lack the academic achievements of their urban counterparts, Ungerleider said that is changing.
He said the differences are narrowing, especially in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, because of the general cohesiveness of those province’s societies where there is less of a gap between rich and poor as compared to Alberta and B.C.
As a former deputy minister of education in B.C., Ungerleider offered ideas that might help rural education.
He suggested that a school division find teacher candidates who are still in training and guarantee them employment once they graduate to deal with staff shortages.
He also said new teachers should be paid a full-time salary for their first two years but be given only three-quarter time work. The other hours would be spent being mentored by an experienced staff member who can help them succeed.
A rural community must be welcoming and positive and willing to help the teacher’s spouse find a job.
Schools must connect the students’ learning with the real world. Ungerleider said a science course that uses farming examples is a natural fit.
As well, everyone in the education system must be held accountable for the results, not just the teachers, but also parents, students, trustees and the provincial government.
“We’re all in this,” he said.
