Fonds F4001 - Ontario Council of Christian Education (O.C.C.E.) fonds

The Ontario Council of Christian Education (O.C.C.E.) was an inter-church run organization for religious education in the province of Ontario with roots dating from the late nineteenth century. To provide background into the organizational history, cooperative Christian education was being organized at the provincial and local level in connection with national parent bodies. The Sunday School Association was the first cooperative organization on Christian education, originating in Quebec in 1836 and in every province by 1915. S.S.A. groups existed at the provincial, county, township, and city levels with conventions taking place annually at which time officers were elected. At the national level, the Canadian Council of Sunday School Associations, created in 1914, morphed into the Religious Education Council of Canada (ca. 1917) which also saw the formalization of denominational representation on local council groups and was established in every province by 1921. R.E.C.C. would operate under the umbrella of the Canadian Council of Churches (est. 1944) and become known as the Department of Christian Education in 1950.

For the province of Ontario, the Sabbath School Association of Canada was first established in 1865. This name would later change to the Sabbath School Association of Ontario in 1887. By 1903, the group underwent another slight name change as the Sunday School Association of Ontario. In 1914, the Ontario Advisory Committee for Cooperation in BoysÍ Work (later called Ontario BoysÍ Work Board) was formed and a year later the Ontario Advisory Committee for the Cooperation in GirlsÍ Work was also established. A few years later both these Committees would be more simply known as the Ontario Boys'/Girls' Work Boards (O.B.W.B., O.G.W.B.), respectively. These groups carried out religious education programming for children and youth, including Older BoysÍ Parliament and Canadian Girls In Training (C.G.I.T.). In 1919, the Sunday School Association of Ontario changed its name to the Ontario Religious Education Council (O.R.E.C.). In addition to Boys' and Girls' Work Boards, general programming for youngsters was under the direction of the Children's Work Board, that ran until 1963. O.R.E.C. changed its name a final time in 1946 to become the Ontario Council of Religious Education (O.C.C.E.). Established committees of the O.C.C.E. included Ministry with Older Youth, Research and Action in Cooperative Leadership Training, Rural Church in Ontario, Church and Public Education, and Church Camp/Leadership Training Committees. Formal reports released through O.C.C.E. committee work included the Brief to the Select Committee on Youth of the Ontario Legislature and Brief to the Aims and Objectives of the Public Education Committee of the [Ontario] Department of Education.

In the early 1960s, there was a shift away from cooperative programming as denominations increasingly administered their own GirlsÍ and BoysÍ work and, for instance, the joint supply depot of educational publications was discontinued. At the end 1965, the O.B.W.B. and O.G.W.B. of the O.C.C.E. were disbanded and local groups were left decide the future of their organization. At the provincial level, the O.B.W.B. became the Ontario BoysÍ Work Committee and the O.G.W.B. continued through the Ontario Provincial C.G.I.T. (C.G.I.T. also continued through the C.C.C.) with neither unit having any direct ties O.C.C.E. By 1967, the O.C.C.E. dissolved completely with denominations carrying out their own Christian education work.