Having, and raising children is considered by us all as one of the most important things we can do in our lives, and yet, no license, or qualifications are needed, other than your rights as a human being. We make the assumption, that anything so important and so fundamental to all life, is one of the main reasons we exist in the first place.

I certainly would not want to change anything about the process of becoming and being a parent and we all need to take a look at life and the way we live in this complex technological world and realize that we are not doing a bad job of raising our children. I look at my aging peers and it is clear that as a generation we, the boomers, have accomplished a lot and will continue to do so. Our parents and their parents contributed to our success just as we are doing our part to make the lives of our children as positive and productive as is possible.

The first thing that we need to recognize in a discussion of this kind is where does all of what we do and expect, where does it come from? Ultimately, our family, the culture from which our families developed and the culture of this society, that has both its flaws, but also its remarkable powers, as a successful way of life. Mostly, we do what was done, we repeat the ways we were shown and select from our past, those things that make sense in today's world.

It was decided, a few generations ago, that life was getting a little to complex for parents to provide the necessary experiences for all children, that were needed in a democratic society. As a people, who believe in the concept of individual worth and the need to create informed voters, as a society, we developed both informal and formal kinds of training for everyone. As time and technology of advanced, those needs have expanded and remarkably, we are sort of keeping up. Kids today are doing their best to cope with an ever confusing world and I am confident they will continue to do so despite the road blocks we place in front of them.

Our education system is under a great deal of pressure to be all things to all people, but the reality, a reality that all parents realize, is that education is a shared thing and we as parents, and as a society as a whole, have to shoulder responsibilities that may not have been around in the past and our schools have to widen their role as well. But, there are limitations. We have reached the point in our school system where we have discovered that the scarcity of time is a dramatic limitation on what we can do in school. Some societies in Europe and Asia have been expanding the school year and school week, which of course puts their children under even more pressure than they already face.

The answer is a simple one and it is surprising that we have not recognized the solution before now. Grade twelve is something every individual in this society must have, yet we still have drop outs and we still have problems with the once rigid attendance act. The facts of life are, that grade twelve in itself, is really inadequate for the needs of a person in this society. People entering collage now are being told flat out, that a bachelor's degree is less than adequate for their needs and parents with kids in university must face the fact that their young people really need a masters degree.

With these pressures on our societal development, why is it that we still have made getting an education above public school, something that depends upon income and to a certain amount, on class position. Why is university in Canada not like grade school, free to everyone and expected as normal?