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Ontario legislation stipulates that one-third of those working in an infant and toddler room and two-thirds of those working in a preschool room must be registered with the College of Early Childhood Educators. All supervisory positions are also designated ECE positions, by law. The College requires members to have an early childhood education diploma or degree from a recognized program.
But Ontario’s legislation also allows child care centres to apply to the Ministry of Education to get what’s called a “Director Approval” to hire individuals who aren’t ECEs for ECE-designated positions. The people taking Director Approval positions must be at least 18 and not have a criminal record. The Ministry approves them to work in an ECE-designated position, despite their lack of qualifications, for a four-year period. After four years, the Minister can re-approve the same underqualified hire, but this requires documentation that the individual is pursuing an ECE program, or planning to do so in the future.
“Director Approvals used to be seen as a very temporary measure in emergencies. Now, it’s become a mainstream recruitment strategy,” explains Sue Colley, chair of B2C2. “There is a shortage of ECEs, and we think that’s very tied to the fact that they don’t earn enough money, and they hardly have any benefits, and they have very poor working conditions.”
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While the ECE shortage has been an issue for decades, it’s especially stark with the push for $10-a-day child care, subsidized by federal and provincial governments. (The Ontario government recently extended the deadline to meet this goal until March 2027; the current average in Ontario is $19 a day). With child care fees now 50 percent lower than they were in 2020, the demand for spots has grown. But, as Straker sees it, rather than increase wages to recruit and retain ECEs (which means increasing funding to child care centres), the government is allowing ECE positions to be filled by underqualified staff. The Local reached out to the Ministry of Education for comment on this story, and did not receive a response.
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Rather than improving the wages and working conditions of ECEs, the Band-Aid solution of simply upping Director Approvals speaks to the government “undermining the value of early childhood education,” says B2C2’s Colley.
“We often hear, ‘We’re raising the future leaders of tomorrow.’ That’s true, but right now, they are the children of today,” says Straker. “We need trained ECEs who understand the full holistic development of the child and can provide the high-quality level of care families are looking for.”