Education in Alberta
As with any Canadian province, the Alberta Legislature
has (almost) exclusive authority to make laws respecting
education. Since 1905 the Legislature has used this capa-
city to continue the model of locally elected public and
separate school boards which originated prior to 1905,
as well as to create and/or regulate universities, col-
leges, technical institutions and other educational forms
and institutions (public charter schools, private schools,
home schooling).
K-12
The first schools in what is now Alberta were parochial,
that is, they were organized, owned and operated by
Church clergy, missionaries, or authorities, both Roman
Catholic and Protestant. A nominal fee was often
charged for the attendance of students at these schools,
and the fee was more often waived, as an act of charity
or as an act of proslytizing, or as an act of local
solidarity.
The first "free" school (which would now be called a
public school) in what is now Alberta, was established in
the hamlet of Edmonton, in the Northwest Territories, in
early 1881. The school was established before the North-
west Territories had a Territorial Assembly, and before
there was any law for the Territory respecting schools,
or local government, or local taxation. The people of the
hamlet of Edmonton elected trustees to govern the es-
tablishment and operation of the school, and submitted
to an informal local taxation entirely on the basis of loc-
al solidarity.
Between 1883 and 1905 a system of education de-
veloped in Alberta by which public education was avail-
able in every community once the local population initi-
atied its introduction; and separate school education
could be provided subsequently, provided certain condi-
tions were met. This system, by which public education
was to be universally available and separate school edu-
cation available under certain conditions, was the sys-
tem which the federal government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier
enshrined in the constitituion of Alberta (the Alberta
Act) in 1905.
There are forty-