Michael Zwaagstra: Giving More Tax Dollars to Education Faculties Won’t Solve Ontario’s Teacher Shortage

Commentary

The school year is over but a hard fact remains—Ontario is experiencing a significant teacher shortage. And obviously, schools cannot function well without qualified teachers in every classroom. To this end, the Ford government recently announced a $55.8 million investment in education faculties in universities across the province. The goal is to create extra spaces in these faculties so an additional 2,600 new teachers can be trained and certified.

At first glance, this seems like a reasonable solution to an intractable problem. However, university degrees are already highly subsidized by Ontario taxpayers. Giving even more tax dollars to education faculties is going to make the problem worse, not better.

In reality, education faculties are a significant part of the problem in Ontario’s education system. Education courses are notorious for focusing on useless theories rather than on practical issues such as classroom management. Prospective teachers are often told, for example, they should be a “guide by the side” rather than a “sage on the stage.”

Poor training makes it harder for teachers to take control of their classrooms. And recent news reports show that many Ontario schools are dealing with significant behavioural issues among students, including incidents of violence. The last thing Ontario needs is another 2,600 poorly trained teachers who don’t know how to control their classrooms.

In addition, many teachers are choosing not to stay in the profession for the long term. A recent study found that nearly 30 percent of Ontario teachers have experienced burnout. Even more concerning, a survey conducted by the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario reported that 77 percent of its members have experienced or witnessed violence in schools.

Simply put, there’s more to addressing the teacher shortage than just opening training spaces in faculties of education. Creating an environment that encourages teachers to stay in the profession would go a long way to reducing the number of new teachers that will be needed.

Ontario also needs to streamline its teacher certification requirements. Ever since 2015, prospective teachers have had to complete an undergraduate degree and then take a two-year teacher education program to become eligible for permanent teacher certification. While it makes sense to require all teachers to have a reasonable amount of expertise in the subjects they teach, there’s no need for a two-year education degree beyond that. Most professionals with a B.A. or B.Sc. degree could easily learn the essentials of managing classrooms and teaching in one year or less.

In fact, one of the worst kept secrets among teachers is that many of the educational theory courses they are required to take are worse than useless. For example, as part of its Bachelor of Education program, the University of Ottawa offers dubious courses such as “Environmental Education Climate Action,” “Social Justice and Global Education,” and “Exploring Gender Sexual Diversity Through a Critical Lens.” These course titles make it sound like the professors who teach them expect teachers to focus more on activism than on teaching academically rigorous courses.

Thus, it makes sense to change the Bachelor of Education degree back to a one-year program, which should focus primarily on a teaching practicum where prospective teachers will be mentored in a year-long internship by excellent practicing teachers. Not only will this make it easier to get new teachers into the classroom more quickly, it will make a teaching career more appealing to professionals who currently work in other fields.

Someone who has already completed a university degree should not be required to waste two years taking a bunch of useless education courses. Cutting the required education program in half is the fastest way to open the teaching profession to more qualified applicants.

Without a doubt, giving more tax dollars to education faculties to admit an additional 2,600 students is the wrong approach. If the Ford government is serious about addressing the teacher shortage, it will root out the bogus theories pushed by faculties of education, take concrete steps to improve teacher retention, and revert to a one-year teacher education program. These are the kinds of concrete actions that would make a real difference in Ontario schools next school year and beyond.

Michael Zwaagstra is a public high school teacher and a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.