Study of enrolments and financing of provincial technical and vocational training in Alberta , 1956-1965

Cybernation is a term used in a new context to identify a new era. It is a term that is associated with technical development and productivity. The implications that cybernation bring with it are twofold for the discipline of education. The first task that falls to education is the development of understanding and the identification of values that will enable mankind to benefit from his surroundings. Secondly, men must be trained to work the new machines. It is in connection with the second task of education that this thesis addresses itself. In Alberta, government-directed institutions of training have developed over the years in order to train apprentices, technicians and to provide other vocational training programmes. An outline of the development of each of these levels of training is presented including a tabulation of the number of people who participated in the different levels of training. The summary that is made herein of the number of people trained is in response to the question: What number of people are being trained and what is the per capita cost? The question is not unique to Alberta. It is suspected, however, that answers are not readily available and a review of the literature bears this out. Technical and vocational training has a history of nearly fifty years in Alberta. The gradual development of facilities through periods of economic crisis, pressures from enrolment, and Federal financial assistance is outlined before the detailed examination of enrolments and costs is presented for the decade commencing in 1956. The number of apprentices in training in 1956 was 2,195. By the year 1965 the number had increased to 4,572. In relative terms the increase was from 1.9 per one thousand population to 3.1. A similar increase was evident in the training of technicians. In 1956 the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology trained 303 technicians. By 1965 the number of technicians in training had increased to 1,701. Of this number, 950 were trained at the new Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. The relative change as measured per one thousand population was from 0.26 to 1.1. The number of persons in other vocational training and non-technical training programmes also increased. The enrolment of 2,379 in 1956 increased to 4,976 in 1965. The relative numbers in training increased from 2.1 per one thousand population to 3.4. An examination of the financing of apprenticeship, technical, and vocational training reveals that an expenditure by the Province in 1956 of $241.35 was required to train each apprentice. However, the net cost to the Province after reimbursements and adjustments, was $148.63 for each apprentice. In 1965 these figures had increased to $328.39 and $191.88 respectively. The expenditure and cost of training each technician in 1956 was $903.71 and $721.43 increasing to $1,464.25 and $750.75 by 1965. In 1965 the expenditure on each technician at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology was $1,989.13 and the cost $1,062.70. For other vocational trainees the expenditure made by the Province in 1956 amounted to $143.18 and the cost amounted to $98.35. This had changed by 1965 to a Provincial expenditure of $388.72 and a net cost of $116.82. The capital expenditure in the form of site, construction, furnishings and equipment for students at all levels of training, over the ten-year period 1956 to 1965, was $241.01. The capital cost was $93.06. The completion of this study for Alberta creates the need for comparisons. The reference points for enrolments and for costs have been established herein, but these must mark the beginning and not the end.

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