Canada plans to open thousands of new kindergartens by 2026
The federal government promises to provide parents with affordable daycare for as little as $10 CAD a day.
By 2026, Canada has planned to create 146,000 new kindergarten places and tens of thousands of new jobs for child care workers. According to Canadian law, the younger the children, the more adults there have to be. In Ontario, for example, there is one kindergarten teacher for every eight children under the age of six.
The Canadian Federation of Child Care estimates that a minimum of 38,000 new child care workers will need to be hired across the country. However, Ontario, the most populous province in the country, has not yet signed an agreement with the federal government on a commitment to expand the preschool system, so future Ontario kindergarten teachers are not included in that number.
But Canadians don't want to work in existing daycare. Back in 2013, Child Care Canada, an independent research organization, found that a quarter of kindergarten workers planned to change careers within three years, and 63% of employers could not find new caregivers to fill vacancies.
Watch a video about an immigrant woman working in a municipal daycare in Canada six years ago. Go to Youtube to watch the first part of the video.
During the pandemic, many educators left the profession altogether or began to look after other people's children privately. This is due to the fact that first all kindergartens were closed and then opened with very high requirements for cleanliness and safety:
The full article is only available to members of the Immigrant.Today community. Log in to your account to read it for free.
