Ontario Faces Growing Student-Teacher Gap, Worsening Classroom Challenges

The briefing documents were prepared for Todd Smith during his brief tenure as Ontario’s education minister over the summer.

While Ontario teachers are among the highest-paid in Canada, with government funding for educational staff and assistants cited as evidence of provincial investment, the government argues that the issue is part of a national trend, not specific to Ontario or its policies.

However, teaching unions, including the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation and the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, argue that the current shortage of teaching resources is a direct result of how the government treats the profession, rather than a lack of training or recruitment of new staff. They warn that poor working conditions are driving new graduates away from the profession before they can establish their careers.

“We don’t have enough teachers right now, and it’s not because we don’t have enough people qualified in the province — there’s about 40,000 people with qualifications for the College of Teachers who are not working in public education, they’re doing other jobs they’ve left — it’s a question of working conditions, violence, all of those things,” Karen Littlewood, OSSTF president,

Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently commented on a field trip controversy in Toronto, instructing teachers to “stick to their knitting” and asserting that he has regarded certain practices in education as “indoctrination” for years, specifically referencing a few “bad actors” in the profession.

Littlewood criticized these remarks, stating that they, along with the limited emphasis on education in key documents such as the province’s annual budget, contribute to a perception among those entering the field that they are undervalued by the government.

“When a premier tells teachers to stick to their knitting, it signals a lack of respect for education from the government,” she said.

She continued, “When you have a government that is intentionally underfunding education and making such comments, it creates a difficult environment.”

Brown emphasized that if the government’s internal analysis predicts a widening student-teacher gap within three years, the system could face significant challenges. She warned that without intervention, schools might have to resort to hiring more temporary, unqualified teachers, which she believes would negatively impact students.

“That would represent a significant failure on the government’s part, demonstrating negligence,” she said.

“I think if this trend continues, the number of qualified teachers leaving the profession will certainly rise; it may not just be 40,000 qualified teachers currently not working—it could escalate to 50,000 or more who hold certifications but are considering other options.”