The evolution of professionalism - Centre for Policy Studies in ...

and school districts to engage in shared decision making and goal setting to meet
the needs of Aboriginal students.
Finally, Policy Directions recognized and encouraged greater involvement of
parents in school districts. Parent involvement was a means to generate greater
community participation and to provide venues for community input. This was a
strategy to accommodate more involved decision making, direction setting, and
accountability at the local level, and links to the expansion of community schools
referred to earlier.
An Agenda for the 1990s
In the early- to mid-1990s, the NDP government introduced a number of reforms
through a series of policy documents: Education Policy (1993), Policies into Practice
(1994) and Skills Now (1995), which collectively set the education agenda through to the
end of the decade. The key issues raised were deprofessionalization and vocationalism;
diversity and inclusion; accountability; and violence and security. With regard to deprofessionalization
and vocationalism, Policies into Practice (1994) suggested that
“journeypersons and trades people” be allowed to teach applied curricula (1994, 12).
The application of this policy initiative involved apprenticeship, work experience and
partnership ‘teams’ working toward province-wide reform in 1995-96.
The political-economic agenda of the time put pressure on the education system
to produce skilled, employable young people for the marketplace. Policies into
Practice emphasized work experience, “skills plans” for school districts and a joint
“secondary/ postsecondary / private sector career program development” (1994,
12). Partnerships with business, labour and the community were emphasized as
part of an initiative to link schools to work, entitled Skills Now (1995). Policies into
Practice suggested that draft policies would be provided to partners in these sectors,
to involve them in consultation and what was called “responsible decision making”
(1994, 20-21). These changes indicated a signifi cant shift in the priorities of the
Ministry, and the implications for professionalization and de-professionalization of
teachers were at the forefront. A skills imperative was seen to be challenging the
traditional priorities for learning and education.
The Royal Commission Report acknowledged cultural diversity and pluralism,
although there were no recommendations to address multicultural education,
English as a Second Language instruction, or cross-cultural tension (Stanley,
1989). The 1990s brought discussions of multiculturalism and cultural pluralism
into sharper focus, in part due to an increased proportion of students from diverse
cultural and language groups (Malatest, 1991; Nelson, 1992). Culture, language,
and intellectual ability came to the forefront as policy issues. While Policies into
Practice was being articulated, a number of initiatives and funding envelopes were
created to promote inclusion, multiculturalism and diversity. Grants were made
available to districts to revise and update English as a Second Language policy
and to promote multiculturalism and antiracism in schools. Access to language
diversity became more prominent with the recognition of multilingualism in 1995,
and policy guidelines were developed for Language Education in BC schools in
1996, as well as the Language Education Policy in 1997. The Language Education
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