The province is redesigning the pipeline without fixing what flows through it. Until faculties of education teach evidence-based literacy and mathematics instruction, program length is a distraction.
School Board Research | April 12, 2026
On April 10, 2026, Minister of Education Paul Calandra and Minister of Colleges and Universities Nolan Quinn announced that Ontario will cut its Bachelor of Education program from two years to one, with implementation beginning May 2027 (CP24, 2026a). The stated rationale is straightforward: a teacher shortage requires a faster pipeline, and a compressed program will save students up to $3,000 while prioritizing practical classroom experience over theoretical coursework. The $150 million funding package, 4,000 new teacher education seats, and 27 per cent increase in per-student funding are not trivial commitments (CP24, 2026a). However, the announcement operates on an assumption that deserves considerably more scrutiny than it has received: that the primary problem with Ontario’s teacher education system is its length. The evidence suggests otherwise. The problem is not how long new teachers spend in faculties of education; it is what they learn while they are there.
The EQAO Data: A Decade of Stagnation
The most recent EQAO results, released for the 2024–2025 school year, present a picture that should trouble anyone proposing structural reforms to teacher preparation. In Grade 6 mathematics, 51 per cent of students met the provincial standard; this represents a one percentage point improvement from 50 per cent in 2023–2024 and 50 per cent in 2022–2023 (Education Quality and Accountability Office [EQAO], 2025). The stagnation is not a post-pandemic artefact. In the 2018–2019 school year (the last pre-pandemic assessment), the figure was also 50 per cent, and in 2017–2018, it was 49 per cent (EQAO, 2022). In this context, the data describes a system in which half of Ontario’s Grade 6 students have failed to meet the provincial mathematics standard for the better part of a decade, and the needle has barely moved.
The literacy results are marginally better but follow a concerning trajectory. Grade 3 reading scores showed 74 per cent of students meeting the provincial standard in 2024–2025, up from 71 per cent the previous year (EQAO, 2025; EQAO, 2024). However, the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s [OHRC] Right to Read inquiry found in 2022 that Ontario’s curriculum and assessment framework had failed to identify foundational reading deficits, particularly among students with learning disabilities, racialized students, and students from low-income households (OHRC, 2022). Grade 3 writing declined from 65 per cent meeting the standard in 2022–2023 to 64 per cent in 2023–2024 (EQAO, 2024). These are not the outcomes of a system that simply needs more teachers faster; they are the outcomes of a system that has not equipped its existing teachers with effective instructional methods.
The Instructional Quality Gap: What Faculties of Education Are Not Teaching
The OHRC’s Right to Read inquiry report, released in February 2022, documented a systemic failure in how Ontario prepares teachers to teach reading. The Commission found that teacher education programs and Additional Qualification courses include little about direct and systematic instruction in foundational word-reading skills; instead, they teach approaches grounded in “balanced literacy” that the Commission characterized as “mostly ineffective” (OHRC, 2022, Section 8). Teachers graduate without adequate knowledge of phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, word-reading efficiency, and morphology. The OHRC did not frame this as a pedagogical debate; it framed it as a human rights issue, with disproportionate impact on students with learning disabilities, racialized students, and students from low-income households (OHRC, 2022).
A 2024 national survey of Canadian student teachers, conducted by University of Alberta education professor George Georgiou and reported by the Globe and Mail, quantified the depth of this gap. Student teachers could correctly answer only 60 per cent of questions on phonics and 64 per cent on phonological awareness; their performance on morphological awareness was 35 per cent (Georgiou, as cited in Globe and Mail, 2024). These are not graduate students being tested on advanced educational theory; they are teacher candidates being tested on the foundational knowledge required to teach a child to read. The survey encompassed more than 600 students, many of whom had completed the language course required for certification. In order to appreciate the implications, consider that these graduates enter classrooms where they are expected to deliver structured literacy instruction, yet their training has not equipped them to do so.
The OHRC’s two-year update, published in 2024, found that while the Ministry of Education had taken steps on curriculum revision and early reading screening mandates, faculties of education had made limited progress in overhauling their programs (OHRC, 2024). Ontario revised its Grades 1 to 8 Language curriculum in 2023 to require structured literacy instruction, creating a direct mismatch: the provincial curriculum now demands evidence-based reading pedagogy, but the faculties responsible for training teachers to deliver it have not substantially changed their approach. Teachers and future teachers taking AQ courses in reading and special education still receive little exposure to direct and systematic instruction in foundational reading skills (OHRC, 2024). The resistance from within faculties has been documented: in 2022, literacy researchers from nine Ontario education faculties filed a formal objection challenging the Right to Read inquiry, arguing that its evidence base was too narrow (CBC News, 2022). This institutional resistance is the core problem that the government’s April 10 announcement does not address.
Why Shorter Programs Could Make This Worse
The government’s proposal to compress the B.Ed from four semesters to three while increasing practicum time creates a significant structural tension. If faculties of education are already failing to deliver adequate instruction in evidence-based literacy and mathematics pedagogy within a two-year program, it is unclear how a shorter program will produce better-prepared graduates. The Minister has stated that the new model will establish a minimum practicum length, but that length has not been determined; it will be settled through sector consultation (CP24, 2026a). This means the central mechanism of quality improvement remains undefined. More practicum time is valuable only if the pedagogical foundation preceding it is sound; sending student teachers into classrooms earlier, with less coursework, risks compounding the existing problem rather than solving it.
The absence of any content mandate is not an oversight; it is a pattern. The April 10 announcement references program length, practicum duration, and cost savings, but contains no requirement that faculties teach structured literacy, evidence-based mathematics pedagogy, or any specific instructional content (CP24, 2026a). The Ontario College of Teachers, which accredits all pre-service and in-service teacher education programs in the province and has the regulatory authority to mandate curricular standards, issued a holding statement indicating it is “currently reviewing the announcement to understand its potential implications” (OCT, 2026). The regulator with the power to require content reform is reviewing rather than acting; the government with the political mandate to drive reform is restructuring the schedule rather than the substance. Neither body has addressed the OHRC’s central finding that what faculties teach about reading instruction is inadequate.
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation captured this dynamic precisely. OSSTF President Martha Hradowy stated on April 10 that she believes the proposal is “a step in the right direction, but it only opens the front door, and right now, teachers are walking out the back” (CKOM, 2026). The retention crisis is driven by working conditions, compensation, and the gap between what teachers are trained to do and what classrooms demand. A shorter program that does not fundamentally reform the content of teacher education will produce more graduates who are inadequately prepared, who struggle in their early years, and who leave the profession at the same rates. The pipeline metaphor that dominates the government’s framing treats teachers as a commodity to be produced in volume; the evidence suggests that what Ontario needs is not more teachers faster but better-prepared teachers who stay.
The Wider Context: TDSB Layoffs and Governance Without Accountability
The timing of this announcement against the TDSB’s confirmation on April 7 of significant staffing reductions sharpens the critique. The board projects cutting 289 positions, while unions place the figure at 607, including all 145 elementary teachers in Model Schools, 72 ESL teachers, and nine teacher-librarians (CP24, 2026b; Global News, 2026). Model Schools were specifically designed to serve communities with the highest need; they are the classrooms where instructional quality matters most and where the consequences of inadequate teacher preparation are most severe. The province is simultaneously promising to produce more teachers through a compressed program while the province’s largest board is shedding the very equity-targeted positions where well-prepared teachers are most critical.
The governance changes expected on Monday, April 13, add a further layer of concern. With eight school boards under provincial supervision and elected trustees suspended, the TDSB’s staffing decisions are being made without public scrutiny or community input (CP24, 2026c). Minister Calandra has signalled that Monday’s legislation will shift more direct control to the Ministry of Education. While governance reform may be warranted where dysfunction is documented, centralizing authority without addressing the instructional quality deficit that the OHRC identified as a human rights issue creates a system that is more controlled but not more effective. In this context, the province is restructuring the governance architecture, adjusting the staffing complement, and compressing the preparation pipeline, all without confronting the pedagogical core: that Ontario’s teachers are not being taught how to teach reading and mathematics effectively.
Conclusion: Reform the Content, Not Just the Container
The question that the April 10 announcement fails to answer is the one that matters most: what will Ontario’s teacher candidates actually learn in their compressed year of study? If the answer is a condensed version of the same curriculum that the OHRC found inadequate (OHRC, 2022), the same curriculum that produces graduates who score 60 per cent on basic phonics assessments (Georgiou, as cited in Globe and Mail, 2024), then the shorter program will not address the teacher shortage in any meaningful sense. It will produce credentials faster. Whether it produces competent teachers is an entirely separate question. In order to genuinely reform teacher education in Ontario, the government would need to mandate evidence-based literacy and mathematics content in B.Ed programs, hold faculties accountable for graduate competency in foundational instructional skills, and invest in the professional development infrastructure that allows practising teachers to bridge the gap between their training and the structured literacy curriculum they are now required to deliver. Until those reforms are in place, program length is a distraction from program quality, and the students who bear the cost of that distraction are the ones who can least afford it.
References
CBC News. (2022, February 28). Why some parents are eager for changes to Ontario’s early reading curriculum. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/right-to-read-inquiry-report-literacy-ontario-1.6378408
CKOM. (2026, April 10). Ontario to cut length of teachers’ college, increase practical element. https://www.ckom.com/2026/04/10/ontario-to-cut-length-of-teachers-college-increase-practical-element/
CP24. (2026a, April 10). Ontario to cut length of teacher education programs nearly in half. https://www.cp24.com/local/toronto/2026/04/10/ontario-to-shorten-length-of-teacher-education-programs/
CP24. (2026b, April 7). TDSB cutting 300 teaching jobs in upcoming school year, not 600+ as union said. https://www.cp24.com/local/toronto/2026/04/07/tdsb-says-nearly-300-teaching-jobs-to-be-cut-in-upcoming-school-year-not-600-as-union-suggests/
CP24. (2026c, April 10). Ontario education minister says ‘significant’ legislation on school board changes coming Monday. https://www.cp24.com/local/toronto/2026/04/10/changes-to-ontario-school-board-governance-coming-monday-education-minister/
Education Quality and Accountability Office. (2022). EQAO releases first provincial assessment results since before pandemic. https://www.eqao.com/about-eqao/news-release/2022-highlighted-provincial-results/
Education Quality and Accountability Office. (2024). Assessment results for 2023–2024 school year. https://www.eqao.com/about-eqao/news-release/assessment-results-2024/
Education Quality and Accountability Office. (2025). Assessment results for 2024–2025 school year. https://www.eqao.com/about-eqao/news-release/assessment-results-2025/
Globe and Mail. (2024, October 28). Student teachers only answered 60% of phonics questions correctly, survey says. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-student-teachers-phonics-literacy-survey/
Global News. (2026, April). TDSB says just under 300 teachers to be cut next year, unions say it’s much higher. https://globalnews.ca/news/11768115/tdsb-toronto-school-board-teacher-cuts/
Ontario College of Teachers. (2026, April 10). News and news releases. https://www.oct.ca/en-ca/news-and-resources/news-and-news-releases
Ontario Human Rights Commission. (2022). Right to Read: Public inquiry into human rights issues affecting students with reading disabilities. Section 8: Curriculum and instruction. https://www3.ohrc.on.ca/en/right-read-inquiry-report/8-curriculum-and-instruction
Ontario Human Rights Commission. (2024). Two-year update: Right to Read inquiry report. https://www3.ohrc.on.ca/en/2-year-update-right-read-inquiry-report
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