A world-class public education system requires world-class leadership. The current Ontario Conservative government has shown that their interests lie elsewhere.
The contract negotiations between the province of Ontario and its teachers have been at a standstill since late 2019. Since then, they have been unsuccessful in coming to an agreement and this has led to teachers engaging in rotating strikes and walkouts throughout different boards across the province.
The contention between the two groups have to do with increasing class sizes, lack of educational funding and resources, and the introduction of mandatory e-learning requirements for high school graduations. The e-learning model would adopt a similar model used in the Alabama education system.
Teachers and the unions that represent them have pointed out that an e-learning model would be damaging to the quality of education because it would introduce a privatized model of education in the province.
This is because instructors would be required to have an Ontario Certified Teacher (OCT) designation. However, the province does not plan to include any union representation for these teachers while integrating this model into the public education system. In turn, this model may disrupt the equality of working standards and pay for teachers in Ontario.
The government has claimed that union leaders have primarily spoken about compensation during labour negotiations. Union leaders across the province have repeatedly stated this to be false.
Furthering tensions across the province, Ontario Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, announced that parents of students affected by strikes and walkouts would receive $60 per day, per affected student. This has been viewed by many as an indication from the government that teachers are primarily seen as daytime caregivers or babysitters, and takes away from the conversation of education itself.
There have been many people, teachers and parents alike, who have also viewed this as a misstep and financial mismanagement by a government that has consistently been looking for ways to reduce educational spending across the province.
The money being offered to parents as compensation for teacher strikes could instead be reinvested back into education rather than manipulating the public by constructing a false narrative to view teachers in a negative light.
In some cases, such as across Halton Region, parents have come together to use the strike compensation to give back to teachers by purchasing school supplies on their behalf, which are sometimes purchased by teachers out of their own pocket and not always reimbursed due to reduced budgets.
Both teachers and parents have been vocal about the cuts to education and the impacts. The current approach to education under Ontario government contradict the very principles teachers are entrusted with in teacher education programs across the province.
Sir Ken Robinson, a professor and renowned education advocate, famously explained in a widely popular TED Talk that schools were originally modeled after factories because their purpose was to create a labour force.
Premier Doug Ford’s vision for Ontario to be “Open for Business” and the current stance on education (reducing funding, cutting back on grants and opportunities for post-secondary education, cancelling development of three new university campuses) only further highlight that the province is not concerned with the quality of education.
Rather, the province is more interested in bolstering the workforce by taking away from education quality and opportunities for higher learning so that post-secondary education becomes less accessible to the majority. This ensures that more young people join the workforce than delay contributing to the province’s economy by furthering their education.
This can also be seen to be true at the post-secondary level, where funding has also been dramatically reduced and universities and colleges have been left to figure out how to manage the shortfalls on their own. This shift in attitude towards education affects all levels across the province and has resulted in a number of clubs and extracurricular programs to shut down because they are no longer financially sustainable.
With no clear end in sight, the current struggle between teachers and the Ontario government is an important one. Teachers are advocating for the future of education in the province whereas leadership wants to scale it back and focus elsewhere. Compromising the quality of education will, however, inevitably lead to Ontario adopting the mentality that the public school system is designed to create factory workers and discourages the pursuit of higher academic excellence.
