Ontario to increase teacher training to two years

Teacher training in Ontario will be bumped up to two years starting in 2014, says the provincial government.

The Liberals, who promised the move during the 2011 election campaign, began consultations with education groups on Wednesday about the change.

Three to four additional sessions are planned for April and May.

Teachers typically earn a four-year undergraduate degree and then spend another year at university completing their bachelor of education. (Ten of the 13 universities with education programs also offer the degrees concurrently so students can complete the two at the same time.)

The Liberals have said more training is needed given the challenges and increasing demands teachers face. The expanded program, the details of which have yet to be finalized, will include more practical, in-class training for new teachers.

Currently, they spend about 45 to 80 days practice-teaching.

Other jurisdictions across Canada — and around the world — require teachers to spend more than a year in training. In Finland, all teachers have master’s degrees.

Annie Kidder, of advocacy group People for Education, said the two-year training partly helps the government deal with the glut of teacher graduates looking for work when few jobs are available.

New teachers often spend years as supply teachers before securing full-time work.

“It’s not so much the quantity of training as it is the quality,” said Kidder. “Just making it two years isn’t the important point necessarily. It’s looking at how much of that is practicum, how much of that is student teachers getting out into the schools, and if the schools themselves have the resources to support that.”

Even the government has acknowledged the 2014 timeline is “ambitious.”

“It is very fast for an education system,” Kidder added, but she thinks the lack of jobs is one of the reasons for such a quick turnaround.

The government has said the move will not cost the province any extra money as there will be fewer teacher education spots available.

Unions have said they support the move. Deans of Ontario’s faculties of education have long called for the extra training.

Almost a decade ago, Jane Gaskell, then dean at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, called teacher training “crammed” into the eight months in a university year, and noted that hairdressers get more training — 10 months.

“We can’t do it in eight months in a responsible way,” she told the Star in 2003.