Commentary
The Ontario government is considering a major change to teacher education.
Since 2015, prospective teachers have had to complete an undergraduate degree followed by a two-year teacher education program at a university. This two-year program includes multiple education theory courses and a practicum where prospective teachers gain practical classroom experience under the guidance of experienced teachers.
An extreme teacher shortage is making the Ford government reconsider this requirement. Like other provinces, Ontario doesn’t have enough teachers to fill every classroom. If teacher education programs were shortened to one year, it would be easier to train teachers more quickly and get them into schools.
But while this is an obvious benefit of switching to a one-year education program, it’s not the only factor to consider. It would be shortsighted if trimming the training requirements led to unqualified teachers working in Ontario classrooms. All students deserve well-prepared teachers.
However, there’s no evidence that two-year education programs are any better at training teachers than one-year programs. Prior to 2015, Ontario teachers only had to complete a one-year program to get certified. If the two-year program was better at training teachers, we should see a measurable difference in quality between teachers who graduated after 2015 and those who graduated earlier. But we don’t.
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In reality, most education degree programs are filled with useless courses that have more to do with promoting woke ideology than with helping teachers become more effective in the classroom. For example, as part of its Bachelor of Education program, Wilfrid Laurier University offers questionable courses such as “Equity and Diversity in Schools,” “Restorative Practices in Education,” and “Anti-Discriminatory Education.”
To be fair, Wilfrid Laurier’s education program also includes potentially useful courses on relevant topics such as assessment and evaluation. However, these topics could be covered in a one-year program that includes a beefed-up practicum requirement. The practicum is important because virtually all teachers agree that a teaching practicum is far more useful than education theory courses taught by professors who haven’t set foot in a K-12 classroom in years—if they ever did.
The Ontario Principals’ Council and the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario have both joined the call for a shortened Bachelor of Education program. These organizations recognize there’s little benefit in making prospective teachers take an extra year of education courses, particularly since this discourages otherwise qualified individuals from entering the profession.
Now it comes as little surprise that university administrators and education professors want to keep the current two-year requirement in place. These institutions benefit from a longer education program since the more courses they offer, the more professors and administrators are needed to run them. This creates an incentive for them to make their programs as lengthy as possible. Thus, their input should be taken with a grain of salt.
Finally, if the Ford government is feeling particularly bold, it should dispense with the Bachelor of Education requirement entirely and allow anyone with a relevant university degree to apply for open teaching positions. After all, it makes little sense that someone with a Ph.D. in mathematics can’t teach high school math unless they first complete a two-year Bachelor of Education degree.
For anyone concerned about an influx of unqualified teachers in the classroom, new teachers could be hired on the provision that they complete a teaching practicum with an experienced teacher. The province could also require teachers to complete a prescribed number of pedagogy courses over the next two or three years. These courses should be offered on evenings and weekends and made available online so that they are accessible to everyone.
Bachelor of Education programs might be worth preserving if they were held in high regard by practising teachers, but they aren’t. Ask any group of teachers how they feel about their education degrees and they will invariably praise their teaching practicum and criticize their education theory courses. It makes sense to streamline these education degree programs and even eliminate them entirely if they fail to improve in quality.
Shortening teacher education programs is a good idea. Hopefully, the Ford government removes a needless barrier that keeps otherwise qualified individuals out of the profession.
Michael Zwaagstra is a public high school teacher and a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
