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'The school boat'

Broadcast Date: March 14, 1972

To get to school in Grade 8, Donald O'Keefe faced perilous pre-Confederation conditions. He walked one mile, then took an open boat in open weather, then walked another two miles. And he did this all over again at lunch. Sitting at a kitchen table in 1972, O'Keefe tells journalist Rex Murphy that today his kids have a much easier time. O'Keefe says his son and daughter take a bus to school thanks to the Confederation initiatives of Joey Smallwood.

The former premier's government built highways and gave Newfoundland its first university. O'Keefe says conditions since 1949 have markedly improved. Youth attend university. "Before children never could have even dreamed this," he explains. But he says the province needs further development if it's going to keep its young and educated from leaving.

'The school boat'

• Since the Second World War, Newfoundland youth have emigrated at a rate of about 5,000 a year. Subsequently, the province's population has all but stagnated with a nominal increase from 568,349 in 1986 to 568,474 five years later.
• In another 1972 report, Rex Murphy points out the irony of improving education for Newfoundlanders. He calls it a double-edged sword because education gives youth the necessary tools to leave the province.

• Rex Murphy was student council president at Memorial University, the institution which gained university status under Smallwood's Liberals. Murphy went on to become a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, along with former U.S. president Bill Clinton.

'The school boat'

Medium: Television

Program: Tuesday Night

Broadcast Date: March 14, 1972

Guest(s): Donald O’Keefe

Reporter: Rex Murphy

Duration: 2:36

Last updated:
Feb. 7, 2003