Public attitudes toward education in Ontario 1982: Fourth OISE survey

Abstract

This fourth OISE Survey was conducted in the context of an economic recession later claimed by political and economic leaders in Canada and throughout the advanced industrial societies to be the most serious since the 1930s. In this situation, the general public appears to be reaffirming rather than rejecting a faith in education as a vital means for coping with the future. In Ontario, as in the US and elsewhere in the advanced industrial world, this popular faith in the capacity of education is expressed in the high fiscal priority desired for public education and job training in relationship to many other pressing needs for government spending. This faith in education is further indicated in Ontario by overwhelming support for increasing or at least maintaining the current amount of public educational expenditure in relation to the rate of inflation. This survey looks at: public satisfaction, educational funding, accessibility, educational decisions, labour force requirements, skill requirements, education and unemployment, curricular goals, curricular objectives, and curricular content.