Higher education in Prince Edward Island

[5] The government of the Crown Colony of Prince Edward Island identified post-secondary (or higher) education as being necessary to ensure the success of regional industry, specifically fishing, agriculture and commerce as early as 1790.

[9] In 1834, the Central Academy was founded by Royal Charter of King William IV as a training institution to keep up with the demand for teachers as a result of the expansion in population.

With the opening of the Central Academy and St. Andrew's College, the island had two government-supported institutions of higher education firmly established in the region.

This partnership remained intact until 1956 despite SDU receiving a degree-granting charter of its own from the provincial legislature in 1917; however, it did not award its first bachelor's degrees until the spring 1941 convocation.

[10] At the Charlottetown Conference in 1864, representatives from the British North America colonies - Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and the Province of Canada - gathered to discuss Confederation.

It established Confederation and outlined division of responsibility between the provincial and federal governments in several areas, including education.

When Great Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, Canada was automatically included as its foreign affairs were still controlled by the British Government.

[14] Besides the obvious loss of university-aged young men to fighting, economically it was crippling as income tax was introduced as a "temporary measure" to help pay for the war effort.

As a post-war rehabilitation measure, the Dominion Government agreed to provide $10,000,000 in support of technical education in an effort to bolster the economy of the country.

[10] After the collapse of the western economies in the 1930s, there was little money available to support postsecondary education as Canada was also thrown into severe economic depression.

[15] Canada committed to supporting Great Britain in World War II and by the time Germany surrendered in 1945, approximately ten percent of the eleven million Canadians had served in the armed forces, and of those, 45,000 had been killed.

[20] The Societé Educative de I'lle-du-Prince-Eduoard opened its doors in 1995 as the first Francophone post-secondary institution in Prince Edward Island at Wellington.

[23] Ratified by the Council of Maritime Premiers, the act defined the mandate of the commission as both improving and providing the best possible service to students as lifelong learners in the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

Currently, the college offers vocational programmes in areas such as practical nursing, accounting clerkship, and early childhood education.

[18] UPEI offers undergraduate, graduate and professional programs in four faculties (Arts, Education, Sciences, and Veterinary Medicine) and two schools (Business and Nursing.

The University of Prince Edward Island has the authority to set its own policies and requirements for admission, but generally, Canadian applicants to UPEI must have completed a high school diploma or its equivalent.

One of the fundamental roles of the association is to create greater awareness and understanding of the important contribution of universities to the social and economic development of the Atlantic Provinces.

The activities of the Association are funded principally through annual membership fees based on the operating income of the member institutions.

CAMET is dedicated to further enhancing the level of cooperation in public and post-secondary education by working on common issues to improve learning for all Atlantic Canadians, optimize efficiencies and bring added value to provincial initiatives and priorities.

[41] The MPHEC was created in 1974 to assist Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and their institutions in attaining a more efficient and effective utilization and allocation of higher education resources.

It provides quality assurance, data and information sharing, cooperative action, and regional programmes as well as specific services to one or more provinces or institutions as agreed to by the Ministers of Education.

The most notable feature of this is the dramatic decline in the proportional contribution of provincial governments to total post secondary education revenues since 1990/91.

[42] Tuition for Prince Edward Island's post secondary intuitions are set by the individual institutions, in consultation with the provincial government.

[46] The projected demographic changes are expected to heavily influence the rate of participation in post secondary education, specifically at the university level.

[47] It is anticipated that the demographic decline of the university age population in the Maritime provinces will be affecting enrolment as early as the fall of 2009, with an overall reduction of 10% by the year 2018.

Recognizing the unique needs of some learners, provisions have been made to facilitate the "postsecondary education of women, Native people, economically disadvantaged groups, disabled, senior citizens, visible minorities, immigrants and those living in remote areas".

[30] Access to higher education for citizens over the age of fifty was improved with the establishment of Seniors College, which is operated in affiliation with UPEI.