Spending more money won’t solve Ontario’s teacher shortage

Ontario is struggling with a teacher shortage. According to recently-released briefing documents from the Ontario Ministry of Education, this shortage will get even worse in 2027. That’s because many teachers are expected to retire while student enrolment increases.

The challenge is particularly acute in specialty areas such as French immersion where it’s increasingly difficult for school boards to attract qualified candidates. Given current demographic trends and the reality of supply and demand, this problem will likely get worse before it gets better.

Teacher unions think they have the solution to this problem—spend more money on government schools. They argue that teachers are underpaid and that across-the-board salary increases will attract more teachers to the profession.

Karen Littlewood, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, also suggested that Premier Doug Ford’s recent comments telling teachers to “stick to their knitting” after some were caught red-handed taking young students to an anti-Israel protest rally last month sent the message that the Ontario government doesn’t value the work of teachers. Apparently, Littlewood thinks that most classroom teachers prioritize activism over academics.

However, criticizing the premier for wanting teachers to focus on classroom instruction is one of the fastest ways to erode trust in public education. If parents don’t trust schools, their relationship with teachers will deteriorate, which puts added stress on teachers. This stress then contributes to teacher burnout, which leads to more early retirements.

In reality, teachers do need to stick to their knitting, just as Premier Ford said. Instead of defending teachers who push their students into political activism, union leaders should support teachers who put the interests of their students first. Not only would this elevate the status of teaching as a profession, but it would also make the job more appealing to anyone thinking of becoming a teacher.

As for the simplistic notion that more money is the solution, Ontario teachers with 10 years experience or more already receive higher salaries than their counterparts in other provinces. Thus, if increasing teacher salaries across-the-board was the solution to the teacher shortage, Ontario would have solved it years ago. Clearly, this hasn’t happened.

A much better approach would be to unshackle teachers and school boards from rigid collective agreements that link teacher pay to only two factors—years of teaching experience and years of university education. School boards should instead be free to offer higher salaries to teachers in high-demand subject areas (such as French immersion) and lower salaries to teachers in lower-demand fields (such as generalist early years positions). This would target the grades and subjects most in need.

Another practical reform is to reduce the number of education courses prospective teachers must take before they can become certified teachers. Most education courses offered by faculties of education are worse than useless since they typically focus more on social justice activism than sound educational practice.

Thus, it makes sense to change Ontario’s current two-year education degree program back to a one-year program. Not only would this get teachers into the workforce more quickly, but it would also cut out many of the useless education courses that don’t provide much benefit to students or teachers.

Finally, the province should get serious about cracking down on violence in schools. When administrators fail to enforce basic standards of behaviour in schools, student and teachers feel unsafe. Not much learning will take place in an unsafe environment. There are far too many times when teachers are victims of violence in schools. No teacher should ever be assaulted, and students who engage in this behaviour must face significant consequences. If teachers do not feel supported by their administration, they are likely to leave the profession.

Simply put, school boards must stop promoting school administrators who prioritize the feelings of violent students over the safety of the other students and their teachers.

To combat the teacher shortage, the Ford government must tackle this problem head on. Simplistic policies such as increasing spending on government schools are not the solution. Real action is needed instead.