Reading, Writing, and Religion

The story of teacher education in Newfoundland and Labrador is firmly rooted in the province’s sometimes-turbulent educational history. Some five hundred ago the Europeans first established settlements on the eastern edge of island of Newfoundland; however, the formal education system was slow to develop. Well into the twentieth century the former British colony remained burdened with the weight of what Alexander McLintock described as colonial retardation—the lingering fallout from an oppressive and unjust set of governance arrangements that served only to benefit the British merchant class. ¹ Although the teaching force in Newfoundland and Labrador is today among the most highly credentialed in the country, this is a relatively recent and hard won distinction. ² For many reasons—financial, political, and religious—successive governments struggled to establish a modern system of education. At the time of confederation with Canada (1949), there was wide regional variation in quality of education, and the system as a whole was well behind the rest of the country in terms of curriculum, instruction, physical infrastructure, and funding.