The shortage of French teachers is becoming increasingly challenging for the Upper Grand District School Board.
As a result, the Upper Grand District School Board will not be expanding its French program for the next school year and has even had to resort to hiring unqualified French teachers for its FSL programs to address the shortage.
Putting a brake on the expansion of the program means that the capped enrolment of 644 students at the Junior Kindergarten level across the board will remain as is and no new French Immersion programs will be available for the 2021-2022 school year.
“The bottom line is that there simply aren’t enough qualified teachers and every board is sharing from the same small pool of teachers,” said Heather Loney, communications officer at the UGDSB.
“The recruitment of French qualified teachers has been a challenge throughout the province for many years.”
This year, there were 685 French Immersion applicants across the board for the 644 spaces. Those who applied late were not selected.
The demand for French Immersion program in Guelph far outweighs its availability for students.
This year, there were 402 applicants for the French Immersion program at the Junior Kindergarten level in nine Guelph schools for 370 available spaces. Whereas in Dufferin County, there 85 students were able to enroll in a program capped at 126 students.
Loney said the recruitment of French qualified staff continues to be a challenge and this challenge is not unique to the UGDSB.
She said in elementary schools, there aren’t enough French teachers whereas in secondary schools, the challenge is related to subject-matter expertise.
“For example, it can be difficult to find a teacher qualified to teach a tech or computer science course who is also French qualified,” said Loney.
Loney said when Ontario's teacher education program changed from a one-year program to a two-year program, the number of new licensed teachers graduating from the teacher education program dropped. She said to further complicate the issues, the Ontario College of Teachers is forecasting an annual increase in retirements and decrease in new teachers licenses over the next few years.
“Of the new licensed teachers available to hire, just a fraction of them are French qualified teachers,” said Loney.
“The board is in competition with other boards in the province and across the country to hire French teachers.”
The annual French review background states that principals in the UGDSB have had to fill FSL positions by hiring non-qualified French teachers with limited French skills, changing school schedules, changing teacher placements to cover a classroom teacher position, sharing part-time French qualified teachers and creating more English openings, rather than French.
The report states that the UGDSB will expand previously approved French programs in its schools next year.
Loney said the UGDSB is continuing to advertise positions for French qualified Occasional Teachers and is hiring them on an ongoing basis.
“In addition to this, teacher candidates still in teacher training are regularly interviewed at job fairs and hired pending their graduation and certification,” said Loney.
