Frontier College and.
Queen's university were two of the first educational institutions to offer some form of adult distance.
education in Canada. In 1899 Frontier college offered English language instruction to immigrants(Selman.
and Dampier, 56). This helped to "bridge the distance- that existed between the people of foreign countries.
and the native residents of Canada. Frontier college also took an innovative approach to distance education.
with the creation of the "labourer-teacher."" This method was effective at the time in which it was.
implemented because in order to effectively educate the labourers in industries such as coal mines and.
logging the labourer-teacher had to work alongside them during the day and facilitate educational.
opportunities during the night. This was necessary in order to gain the trust and respect of the labourers.
since many of them had negatives opinions of the typical educated person. (Selman and Dampier, 35). The.
emergence of what is typically seen as distance education in Canada coincided with the rise of the mail.
service (Srivastana, 2002, ¶ 1). Queen's university in Kingston, Ontario was the first to offer.
correspondence courses in 1889. These were conducted with the help of the Canadian North West.
Mounted Police as they were used for delivery of course materials in areas without mail service.
(Srivastana, 2002, ¶ 1). As we will see throughout this discussion, Canada was and continues to be a.
leader in the delivery of courses through distance. Other educational institutions soon followed the ways of.
the pioneers as distance education became increasingly popular and in demand. In 1907 off-campus.
courses became available through the University of Alberta (Srivastana, 2002, ¶ 1), and in 1916 the.
Provincial Institute of Technology and Art offered five coal mining courses by correspondence (SAIT -.
Centre for learning, 2002, ¶ 1). It is quite evident that early Canadian educators identified the need of.
