The announcement that the Toronto District School Board is set to cut more than 100 teaching jobs is just the latest disheartening news for new teachers looking to get break into the profession. It caps a series of trends and policy decisions that have made becoming a teacher one of the most difficult career aspirations to fulfil. And if we don’t change things soon, we risk permanently losing the energy, passion, and new ideas of an entire generation of young people from ever entering into our classrooms.
So what happened? The first thing is demographics. The student-age population in Ontario has been in free fall for over a decade. From 2004 to 2014, total enrolment in Ontario public schools decreased by over 126,000. This has meant a loss of thousands of teachers across the province. Indeed, declining student enrolment is cited as the main factor behind the job cuts at the TDSB.
But the second issue, which has compounded the problem, is that during this time we have been training far more teachers than could ever hope to be employed. During that same 10-year period, the number of newly licensed teachers in Ontario exceeded the number of retirements by over 6,500 per year.
These two factors combined have led to scores of teachers simply exiting the profession, taking all of their talent and training with them. As one frustrated teacher recently told the Ontario College of Teachers, “I am a highly qualified individual who is excited to start teaching and I can't get on any supply lists. I received a letter of recommendation from the principal. I also upgraded my qualifications so I can teach K-12. I have not even been granted an interview. The job market is inundated with teachers.” (more...)
You're not chained to the education establishment. Get creative:
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