1940 February: Public school teachers are required to take an Oath of Allegiance.

July: School cadet corps are resumed. Mandatory cadet instruction -- involving "infantry squad and platoon drill without arms" -- is introduced in all provincial superior, junior high and high schools.

1941 A model school opens in conjunction with the Provincial Normal School in Vancouver.

A Bible Study course is added to the provincial high school curriculum. Two additional courses in Bible Study are added in 1942 and 1943.
1942 Students of Japanese, German or Italian "racial origin" are excluded from cadet corps in provincial schools. The students were excluded on the authority of a special cabinet order signed on 20 February 1942. The policy of barring the students, ostensibly for "security" reasons, was controversial.
1943 Bible readings are authorized by the Council of Public Instruction. In 1944, the Public School Act is duly amended to read: “All public schools ... shall be opened by the reading, without explanation or comment, of a passage of scripture....to be followed by the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.”

The Provincial Library and Archives, the Provincial Museum, and the Public Library Commission are transferred to the Department of Education from the Provincial Secretary's Department.
1944 August. The Department of Education establishes an Educational and Vocational Guidance division. Harold P. Johns is appointed director.

An Educational Reference and School Service Division is also created in 1944, with Muriel Scace as director. The Division is responsible for providing reference material to departmental curriculum committees and for publishing a quarterly magazine called The Rural School. After 1946 the magazine was renamed British Columbia Schools. Two different editions, one for elementary schools, another for secondary schools, were published.

September. Victoria is one of the first school districts to create a Social Guidance programme, featuring an etiquette guide and dress code for teenagers.

September: The first provincially-funded Kindergarten classes are opened, on an experimental basis, in Vancouver and Victoria, when the Department of Education agrees to provide a grant towards the salary of kindergarten teachers. In Vancouver, the first kindergarten classes are opened at Henry Hudson and Dawson Schools; Victoria's first kindergarten is opened at Spring Ridge School.

On 27 November 1944, Dr. Maxwell Cameron is appointed to investigate school finance and school administration.

1945 April: Dr. H. B. King recommends the establishment "junior" or regional colleges outside Victoria and the lower Mainland. King recommends that the new colleges operate as specialized rural teacher-training centres.

May 8th -- VE [Victory Europe] Day. The end of World War II against Germany. City school inspectors report unprecedented absenteeism as students skip classes to join in VE Day dances, parades and other celebrations.

September 2nd -- VJ [Victory Japan] Day, marks the end of the Second World War. Commemorative ceremonies are held in all public schools when the new school year commences.

September: Cadet Corps are changed from a compulsory to a voluntary basis. Vancouver schools immediately drop their cadet training programmes, but seventy-five other corps, with an enrolment of over 5,000 students, remain active in the province.

1946 On 25 February 1946 the Cameron Report on Educational Finance is tabled in the Legislature. The Report recommends a new formula for school finance and the organization ofthe province into seventy-four large administrative units.

Public School Amendment Act. This statute implements the recommendations of the Cameron Report and establishes large, regionally-defined administrative units. The new units are styled School Districts, but are also assigned numbers. Hence S. D. [School District] No. l (Fernie), S.D. No. 39 (Vancouver), S.D. No. 61 (Greater Victoria), etc.

August: J. R. Pollock is appointed director of the newly-created Division of Visual Education. The division is required to provide services to public schools which have access to electricity, and to rural schools, most of which did not have access to electricity. City and municipal schools are provided with educational motion pictures and film-strips; rural schools receive illustrated magazines and posters.

Division of Tests, Standards and Research is established, under the direction of Dr. C. B. Conway. The division is created in order to administer scholastic aptitude tests for pupils, to conduct research into curriculum standards, and to provide training in the fields of scholastic measurement, diagnosis, and remedial instruction. Subsequently, the Division is tasked with monitoring birth rates and school enrolment data, to anticipated needs for more teachers and classrooms.
1947 January: The 75th Annual Report of the Public Schools of the Province of British Columbia, for 1945-46 is published. This is the last Annual Report to list provincial teachers by name, to identify schools where teachers were employed, and to report on individual teacher’s qualifications and salaries. In 1950, the Public School Act was amended, abolishing the requirement (dating from 1872) to publish this information.

In the same volume, and for the first time, Children of Foreign Parentage are enumerated. Fourteen categories are listed - viz. Americans, Chinese, Doukhobors, Finns, French, Germans, Hindus, Italians, Japanese, Poles, Russians, Scandanavians, Urkranians, and “other foreigners.” The 82nd Annual Report, for 1952-53, is the last Report to publish this data.

Membership in the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation is compulsory for all public school teachers, effective 1 April 1947.

School dormitories are established in Prince George. After the closure of the controversial Cache Creek Boarding School in the 1890s, the government had been reluctant to establish school dormitories. However, in order to enable students in isolated rural districts to attend high school, the Public School Act was amended to allow district trustees to operate school dormitories. By 1960, nine school districts were providing “dormitization.”
1948 .
1949 First steps, since the nineteenth century, towards integrating and accommodating First Nations students in the provincial public school system. An amendment to the Public School Act enables local Boards of School Trustees and the federal Department of Indian Affairs to enter into agreements for sharing the costs of schooling for aboriginal children

The office of School Planning and Construction is established, to plan and coordinate a massive school building programme necessitated by the post-war baby boom.