Inspiring Education: A Dialogue with Albertans

Albertans were asked: What are your hopes, dreams and aspirations? For your children and grandchildren? If we are to be successful individually and collectively as a province, we need to consider how to help all Albertans realize their potential. Inspiring Education: A Dialogue with Albertans was an opportunity to shape the future of education in Alberta and we wanted to hear everyone's perspective.

Inspiring Education was different from a public consultation. It was a dialogue - an exchange of ideas to change each other's thinking about what education is and what education means. It was about looking to the future and deciding what education in Alberta should be in twenty years. No matter who or where in Alberta, people were invited to listen and contribute to the conversation. One of the primary goals was to reach a clear understanding of what it will mean to be an educated Albertan 20 years from now. To reach that goal we needed everyone's voice.

The discussions were based on five key values - opportunity, fairness, citizenship, choice and diversity - which are critical to the success of Alberta's education system. Inspiring Education sought ideas, suggestions and points of view from all parts of the province, from large cities to remote and rural communities; from inner-city neighbourhoods to expanding suburbs; from towns and cities experiencing the pressures of rapid growth to those dealing with the challenges of declining population.

Inspiring Education: A Dialogue with Albertans was supported by a Steering Committee who guided and acted as ambassadors for the project.  The members of this committee were also the public authors of the broad outlines for the policy framework resulting from the dialogue.

View the Steering Committee Report.

For more information about the initiative, visit the archive of the Inspiring Education website.