Ontario cuts education colleges off at the knees

No longer will they have free rein to pad their programs with courses that promote ideology over good teaching practices

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It’s one of the worst-kept secrets among teachers: Education courses offered by teacher training institutions are often worse than useless.

For example, as part of its Bachelor of Education program, York University offers questionable courses such as “Educating for Activism,” “The Politics of Social Transformation,” and “Situated Learning and Education.”

At the University of Ottawa, students can select from equally bizarre-sounding courses such as “Social Justice and Global Education,” “Holistic and Non-Traditional Approaches to Education,” and “Exploring Gender Diversity through a Critical Lens.” It’s hard to imagine what relevance any of these courses has to the day-to-day realities of teaching and learning.

Ontario education colleges have been able to get away with padding their programs with fluff courses in part because of a policy change that created the space for it. Back in 2015, the Liberal government under Kathleen Wynn doubled the length of teacher training programs from one year to two years.

While the intent behind this change was to slow down the influx of surplus teachers into the education system, the impact was profoundly negative. Not only did it contribute to the current shortage of certified teachers, but it also made it easier for education colleges to impose additional useless courses on prospective teachers.

Fortunately, the Ford government is finally reversing that error. Last week, Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra announced that he was cutting the length of teachers’ college from two years back down to one year. Even better, Calandra stated that his government will increase the amount of time prospective teachers will spend in supervised teaching in front of students.

This extended practicum requirement is a welcome change, particularly since Ontario’s current 80-day practicum requirement is one of the lowest in the country. There’s no question that practical experience with real students along with excellent supervising teachers is key to ensuring that new teachers are prepared to take over their own classrooms once they graduate.

Taken together, these changes do more than tweak the system. By shortening the length of the Bachelor of Education program and extending the practicum requirement, Calandra has effectively cut education colleges off at the knees. No longer will education colleges have free rein to pad their programs with useless courses that promote ideology rather than good teaching practices.

Since time will be at a premium, education colleges will have no choice but to jettison their most useless courses in favour of courses that focus on meaningful teaching and learning. A one-year program where students spend much of their time in practicum working in public schools leaves little time for fluff courses. This is a good thing.

Interestingly, the Ontario Teachers’ Federation (OTF), the professional body which represents all 160,000 teachers in Ontario’s public schools, has expressed qualified support for these changes. In fact, the OTF has long advocated extending the practicum length and argued that the two-year Bachelor of Education college requirement exacerbated the teacher shortage.

Given the long history of strife between the Ford government and Ontario teachers’ unions, it’s striking that the two sides largely agree with a change of this magnitude. Obviously, teachers’ unions still have profound disagreements with the government. No one expects that this reform will magically change the relationship between the government and the teachers’ unions.

Nevertheless, the Ford government is to be commended for reversing a mistake made over a decade ago by the previous government. Doubling the length of the Bachelor of Education program might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but the negative effects of that change have, over the years, become obvious.

Since the Ford government is finally taking real action on teacher training, the next step should be to examine the fluff in the graduate programs offered by teacher colleges. Across Ontario, teachers are increasing their salaries by taking master’s degrees in education that consist of even worse courses than those offered in Bachelor of Education programs.

There’s no evidence that completing a master’s degree in education makes a teacher more effective. And yet, every year, hundreds of teachers across the province graduate with master’s degrees and move up the pay scale. Minister Calandra should order a full-scale review of this practice and ensure that if teachers are going to receive pay raises by taking courses, they should at least be expected to take rigorous courses in subjects that will improve their teaching.

Cutting useless education courses at the Bachelor of Education level is a good first step. Now it’s time to do the same thing at the graduate level.

Michael Zwaagstra is a senior fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.