Rural Newfoundland: A Struggle for Survival


Rural Newfoundland is in a period of profound change. The collapse of the traditional fishing industry and the downsizing of other resource-based industries have sparked massive out-migration from many rural communities. When this is combined with a sharply declining birth rate, the result is a rapidly vanishing way of life. Once thriving communities now exist only because that is where residents have their homes and their roots.

Despite efforts to provide income supports, to offer retraining opportunities and to devise alternate economic development strategies, many inhabitants of rural Newfoundland face a gut-wrenching decision - to leave and face the challenge of building a new life elsewhere, or to stay and either watch their communities shrivel or strive to maintain their viability.

We must resist the inclination to decry the wholesale exodus of "the best and the brightest" from small communities. It is natural that many will leave to further their education, to obtain employment, or simply because they prefer to live elsewhere.

The younger people who remain are, generally, those who have not completed high school. While most of the older residents of those communities has little formal schooling, they were well-educated in the skills required to provide for their families and in their knowledge of the specific culture of their communities. Unfortunately, for both generation, traditional skills no longer provide a livelihood, and they have few options.

The real challenge is whether rural communities can regain a vitality which could make living there a realistic option. It is difficult to assess to what degree rural communities can reorient themselves to establish a niche in a more sophisticated fishing industry, to participate in opportunities in the information technology field, to build a manufacturing base, or to avail of the potential of the tourism industry.

Newfoundland has often been unfavorably compared to Iceland, an island with resources and problems similar to Newfoundland. Why does Iceland appear to be coping much more successfully than Newfoundland? I wonder if it is mere coincidence that I recently heard Iceland's capital, Reykjavik, referred to as the most literate city to the world. I think not!

If rural Newfoundland is to have any chance of survival, it can only be through the efforts of a vibrant, literate population, armed with an education that equips them to compete in today's complex world. Moving in this direction involves a significant shift in thinking. Education must come to be seen as the essential ingredient in fostering economic growth, and in dealing with health and social issues. This implies an obligation on the part of educators, social and health agencies, organizations involved with economic development, and businesses to work cooperatively to help create an awareness of the importance of education.

Stephenville - Port aux Basques School Board in southwestern Newfoundland operates a total of thirty-six schools in primarily rural communities, serving approximately seven thousand students. Thirty of those schools have student populations of less than three hundred. A number are very small isolated schools with populations of less than fifty students in grades kindergarten to twelve.

Most of the communities in the region were established and grew as fishing communities. As the fishery has waned, and for some, disappeared, concerns have grown about economic conditions, about social problems, and about levels of educational achievement. While agencies serving those communities have mandate to serve different constituencies and address specific issues, they have come to the realization that dealing with each of those issues is critical to overall community development and they certainly do not exist in isolation from one another.

This realization led various community agencies to develop informal working relationships, which have since 1992, become formalized as the Port au Port Community Education Initiative. This umbrella organization, with twenty partners, is committed to the development of comprehensive strategies for long-term development within the communities of the region. While the agencies have responsibility for social services, health promotion, human resource and economic development, and education, all have agreed that an intense focus on education is the key to community growth. Education is viewed by the Community Education Initiative in the broadest sense, as involving the entire community.

The most tangible results of the work of the Community Education Initiative have been manifested in a number of initiatives made possible through inter-agency cooperation and include the following:

Family Resource Centres - With the assistance of funding provide through the Brighter Futures Program of Health Canada and through the collaboration of a number of community agencies, the school board has committed to proved space in each of its small primary schools to establish Family Resource Centres - areas designed to support drop-in play programs for parents and young children. Those centres also provide books and educational toys which families may borrow for use at home, and offer parenting programs on a variety of topics of interest to parents of young children. As well, with Health Canada funding, the Community Action Committee administers a program of pre-natal nutritional support to a number of young mother to help ensure healthy births.

Pre-School Programs - In a number of communities which have no pre-school services, schools provide year-long pre-kindergarten programs for four-year olds who will be entering kindergarten in the following year. Space is provided in schools, and funding comes through a combination of school board support, sponsorship through the Department of Human Resources and Employment (formerly Social Services), parent fees, and community fund-raising. In the communities with this service, all children are involved in this program, and parental involvement is strongly promoted.

Parents As Teaching Partners - In cooperation with Laubach Literacy of Canada, the school board has developed a four-day training program for parents focusing on ways in which they can work with their children to help achieve educational goals.

Inter-generational Sharing - Strengthening the idea that education is a community concern, school attempt to establish bonds between students and senior citizens. In one such example, Our Lady of Mercy Elementary School in St. George's sponsors an inter-generational program involving Grade Five students and a number of seniors involved in an outreach program with the Bay St. George Senior Citizens Home. In this program, the students and seniors share meals on special occasions, the school holds special days when seniors can share artifacts from "the old days", and they participate in a number of outings, all of which contribute to the development of special bonds between students and seniors.

Alternate Learning Environments - Recognizing that the traditional school environment does not meet the needs of all students, the district has established the Pathfinder Learning Centre to serve a group of at-risk high school students and former dropouts from a number of schools. Using the computer-managed system Pathfinder Learning System, students follow individual learning paths that allow them to complete high school credits or, through an arrangement with the College of the North Atlantic, to complete Adult Basic Education credits. Students also participate in a Youth Internship Program, with funding support from Human Resource Development Canada. This program connects them with potential career opportunities, provides work experience, and helps them develop an Employability Skills Portfolio.


The ultimate success of such initiatives will be a direct reflection of the degree to which the entire community shares the underlying beliefs. Education must become a community obsession. In this era if education reform, much attention has been focused on the importance of defining desired education outcomes - what students should know and be able to do if they have succeeded in achieving the aims of education. While not diminishing the challenge of defining what an education should be, the issue of eliminating the barriers to success that many students face, both inside and outside the classroom, is an even more daunting task. It is a challenge that requires educators and others providing services to communities to work cooperatively to foster a different way of thinking.

It is a way of thinking which recognizes that survival, development and growth of our communities is dependent upon the concerted efforts of many organization and agencies serving those communities, and a recognition among all residents of the role education must play in the future of rural Newfoundland. It is a way of thinking that recognized and values the significant role that small community schools can play in that development. Education does not provide any guarantees but a lack of education is a virtual guarantee than many rural Newfoundland communities face an uphill battle in their struggle for survival.

For those with needed skills, the disadvantages of geography and isolation are no longer the significant inhibitors they once were to the viability of rural communities. If we can succeed in fostering that commitment to making education a priority, maybe some of those who have left, often reluctantly, may have the opportunity to choose to return.


This is a reproduction of the article that appeared in Small Schools Newsletter, Volume 12, Issue 1, October, 1998.





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