Opinion: Edmonton Public Schools' travel ban teaches a lesson of fear
Author of the article: By Stephen Murgatroyd, J-C Couture
Published Jun 11, 2026
Last updated 0 minutes ago
4 minute read
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Tourists use an umbrella to shield themselves from the sun as they stand in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris on May 27, 2026. Photo by JOEL SAGET /AFP via Getty Images
The recent decision by Edmonton Public Schools to suspend all international student travel and school exchanges for the 2026–27 school year deserves much closer scrutiny. The division cites a “complex global landscape of evolving political, economic and public health challenges” and says the decision was made “out of an abundance of caution.” Parents have expressed confusion and disappointment, particularly given the absence of any specific threat or identified risk.
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To some, this might seem like a prudent administrative decision. School boards have legal responsibilities. They must manage risk and ensure student safety. No reasonable person disputes this. But at another level, this decision tells students something profound about how the adults in charge understand the world. It risks teaching an unintended and damaging lesson: that the world “out there” is fundamentally something to be feared.
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A growing body of scholarship suggests that Western education systems are increasingly organized around what researcher Marta Estellés calls the “safetyfication of education” — the tendency to make safety the dominant organizing principle of school life. Schools gradually shift from being places where young people learn to navigate complexity, uncertainty and risk, to institutions primarily focused on minimizing exposure to these defining features of contemporary life. Safety becomes not just a stated value, but a curriculum — a curriculum of fear.
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This matters especially right now. Levels of anxiety and depression among young people are at record highs across Canada and globally, with worries about an uncertain future at the centre of their distress. Precisely at such a moment, “the adults in the room” should be modelling courage, confidence and thoughtful engagement with the world — not institutionalized avoidance. When the institutions responsible for educating young people signal that the world is too dangerous to be experienced directly, they deepen the very anxiety they claim to be managing.
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Ron Thompson, superintendent for Edmonton Public Schools, has made the decision to halt all international travel for the division in the 2026-27 school year. Photo by Liam Newbigging /Postmedia
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There is also a question of equity that cannot be ignored. For many students — particularly those from low-income, newcomer or working-class families — a school-organized international trip is the only realistic opportunity they will have to travel beyond their province before adulthood. Research confirms that financial resources are the primary barrier to travel for young people, and that school-organized trips are essential for bridging this divide.
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Studies of educational travel consistently show that students who participate gain higher confidence, deeper curiosity and stronger intercultural competence. These are benefits that carry into the classroom and later life. When policy-makers cancel all international travel, it is not students from well-resourced families who lose out.
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Those families will travel anyway. It is students who depend on public education as their gateway to the wider world who are left behind. The decision quietly privatizes the experience of global learning while publicly claiming to prioritize safety.
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The language used to justify the ban is telling. “Abundance of caution” has become one of the defining phrases of public administration in the post-pandemic era. It sounds prudent and is difficult to oppose. Yet it carries the hidden assumption that we cannot distinguish between risk and recklessness.
