It鈥檚 a common enough rumour 鈥� you hear it sometimes in school staff rooms every time the Fraser Institute schools ranking report is published.
Somebody opines that the decline in public-school enrolments and the increasing enrolment in independent schools are evidence of a government/Fraser Institute/business-interests plot to privatize the entire public-education system.
It is the kind of grassy knoll/moon landing/Da Vinci theory that is attractive to some, but ignores demographics, economics and history.
Common sense tells us that the logistics and cost of privatizing education for 564,000 kids might be beyond the organizational capacity of either government or the Fraser Institute.
Enrolment in sa国际传媒鈥檚 public schools has declined by almost 96,000 students since the 2001 school year. Ministry of Education projections show the numbers climbing slowly again beginning in 2017 or earlier.
There are reasons for this decline, although nobody knows exactly what those reasons are.
One theory is that the young-family demographic shifted to other provinces. Alberta, where work might be easier to find, has a public-school population that has risen to 462,000 from 403,000 since 2003.
Another theory is that confidence in the resource economy here in sa国际传媒 has been shaken by layoffs and shutdowns in smaller communities.
Population shifts within the province have cost school districts such as Cariboo Chilcotin, Quesnel, Powell River, Prince Rupert and Stikine, while Surrey, Langley and the Comox Valley have seen small increases in student population.
At the same time, enrolment in sa国际传媒鈥檚 independent schools has increased by about 14,000 since 2001, 4,000 of whom joined independent schools in the last four years. This includes some premium fee-paying international students.
Again, there are reasons for this increase, but it鈥檚 probably more about choice, religious and otherwise.
Public schools are secular. There is no religious instruction in public schools, and for families for whom organized religion is an important aspect of daily life, that is an issue.
At one time, Section 167 of the School Act required that 鈥渁ll public schools shall be opened by the reading, without explanation or comment, of a passage of Scripture 鈥� followed by the recitation of the Lord鈥檚 Prayer, but otherwise the schools shall be conducted on strictly secular and non-sectarian principles.鈥�
Section 167 was challenged in 1989 and it was removed. Humanists celebrated and a few families began slowly to move kids into church-based and other independent schools.
There are other reasons why some families choose independent schools.
Independent schools are under no obligation to accept anybody and everybody, as public schools are.
The provision in independent schools of sports, performing arts, tutorial and hours of instruction are determined by the school and not limited by contract or labour issues.
Independent schools charge fees but have, since 1989, received 50 per cent of the per-capita funding provided to public schools.
This bothers some public-school defenders, who forget two things: First, all taxpayers support public education, even if their kids do not attend a public school.
Second, if there were no independent schools, government would be funding 73,000 more kids at full price. The cost of public education would balloon by something like $30 million in operating costs alone. Then there would be capital, maintenance, transportation and the need for many more public dollars.
Say what you will, it seems that an economy in transition and choices made within families are the real culprits in recent declining public-school enrolment.
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Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent of schools. His own son graduated successfully from public school.
