Fall/automne 2004
Articles

Officer Professional Education in the Canadian Forces and the Rowley Report, 1969

Randall Wakelam
Ph.D. candidate in history at Wilfrid Laurier University
Bio
Published October 1, 2004
How to Cite
Wakelam, Randall. 2004. “Officer Professional Education in the Canadian Forces and the Rowley Report, 1969”. Historical Studies in Education / Revue d’histoire De l’éducation 16 (2), 287-314. https://doi.org/10.32316/hse/rhe.v16i2.334.

Abstract

In the late 1960s the Canadian Military was experiencing a peacetime upheaval. The three previously independent Services were being amalgamated – unified – by political direction. This meant that previously independent processes, including professional education, had to be rethought and reorganized to fit the new single-force philosophy. Under the leadership of a battlefield commander, Major-General Roger Rowley, a small team set out to devise a radical concept for academic and professional education that would provide officers with a coherent suite of learning programs spanning their careers, all provided for by an integrated single military-civilian teaching engine. The plan immediately met resistance from pre-existing organizations and, harried by organizational reductions, faded from the scene, even as the value of enhanced education was receiving general support. In 2002, with a renewed focus on intellectual agility, the concept was resurrected with the establishment of the Canadian Defence Academy.