THUNDER BAY — Reducing the schooling needed for a teacher's certificate from two years down to one could help with some specific labour shortages locally, some local union officials say, however, larger systemic issues with education in the province are also to blame.
The Canadian Press has reported, citing documents it obtained through a freedom of information request on teacher supply and demand, that Ontario could be considering returning teachers’ college to a one-year curriculum.
John Delorey is the president of the teachers’ and occasional teachers’ bargaining unit with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation in Thunder Bay, representing teaching staff at the city’s public high schools. He said, currently, there is difficulty finding enough teachers to fill more specialized disciplines like technical education, math and French.
He said there are benefits to one-year programming.
“You get more experience and more opportunities to volunteer and be in schools,” Delorey said. “The one-year program, it gives you the credentials, the basic credentials, to get into a school and work in some capacity.”
“Generally, it's time in front of kids is where you hone your skills.”
He said, currently, there already is a provision that allows education students who want to teach in some of the more specialized areas, like tech, to apply to the Ontario College of Teachers before they graduate. Delorey, who is also the program coordinator for the tech ed program at Lakehead University, said it effectively shortens the 24-month program down to 16 months.
Overall, Thunder Bay doesn’t appear to have the same overall shortages in full-time or occasional teaching staff as other parts of the province, with the presence of Lakehead University and its education program right in town receiving a lot of the credit for that.
Lakehead Elementary Teachers of Ontario president Dave Paddington said a one-year curriculum would reduce the cost for students studying to become teachers, reducing that barrier, and would likely also help with bolstering the number of occasional, or supply teachers.
“Where we struggle is ‘fail-to-fills’ or occasional teachers,” he said, adding that, from a union perspective, he represents full-time teachers not occasionals. “When that list gets depleted, it's very hard to very quickly fill it up.”
“What happens in schools is that if Dave Paddington's sick and calls the supply service and the supply service says ‘we can't get anybody,’ then they have to do a little bit of a dance in the school to keep those kids safe and moving forward.” The president of the Catholic elementary teachers local, Michelle Pero, echoed that, saying shortening the curriculum “may help with the problem.”
Carlo Cappello, the local president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association, said he agrees that fail-to-fills can be an issue, but said he doesn’t think shortening the length of teachers’ college is “the be-all-and-end-all.”
“I mean, we'd be interested to see what might come of that,” he said. “But … I don't think it's the solution.”
Cappello and Paddington both pointed to larger issues in education in Ontario as being drivers of any teacher shortages.
“There's forty thousand qualified teachers in Ontario that aren't teaching,” Cappello said. “We're seeing veteran teachers leave early, we're seeing new teachers in their first five years deciding that this isn't for them — they're going to find other work and alternate career paths.”
Cappello and Paddington both point to what they’re calling cuts to education, a lack of funding and the lack of resources in schools around things like violence in classrooms, supports for students with disabilities and other needs, and resources for special education.
“I think what the government really needs to do is they need to properly fund and provide support to classroom teachers and to school boards,” Cappello said.
And while shortages may not be too much of an issue in Thunder Bay right now, Delorey, with the OSSTF, said that could change, as he said he’s expecting a lot of retirements in the next several years.
