MANITOBA Education made sweeping changes to speed up the teacher-certification process by slackening training requirements — even though confidential documents reveal there was reasonable support for moderate tweaks among key stakeholders.
There is a stark contrast between a spring blueprint a senior bureaucrat, citing early feedback from employers, union leaders and faculties of education, described as a relative consensus on the desired outcomes of a recent regulatory review versus what was introduced four months later, according to government slide decks obtained by the Free Press through a freedom of information request.
“Eliminating these requirements is doing an experiment on all of our grade school and high school students and we don’t know how the results are going to turn out,” said Andrew Frey, a physics professor at the University of Winnipeg.
Frey has joined academic colleagues in affected disciplines, ranging from mathematics to geography, to petition for the reinstatement of requirements for teacher candidates to gain expertise in specific subject areas to become certified.
As of Nov. 12, anyone who aspires to teach in the kindergarten-to-Grade 12 system no longer needs to specialize in a list of approved subject areas, also known as major and minor “teachables,” during their post-secondary studies.
The wide-ranging regulatory update included the removal of an obligation for K-8 stream candidates to complete extra training in mathematics, science, one of Canada’s official languages, and either history or geography.
It has been touted as an initiative to reduce red tape, especially for internationally trained educators, align Manitoba with other Canadian jurisdictions and streamline entry into education faculties while making admissions processes more equitable.
The teachers union, school boards association and dean of the largest faculty of education in the province have publicly endorsed the changes, but a growing number of Manitobans is raising concern about their unintended consequences.
Mira Koop, a math tutor and facilitator at an after-school art program, said she’s concerned the loosening of requirements will worsen social acceptance of disliking math and avoiding it.
“Math anxiety is glorified” as it is, she said.
The 23-year-old noted she is often met with shock and “I hate math” comments when she meets new people and tells them she is studying the subject at U of W.
“It’s devastating listening to students share the fact that they’re struggling and they aren’t being offered solutions or support or help because their teachers are also struggling,” she said.
Government documents that detail initial findings from a review of teacher-certification requirements show participants had conflicting preferences. In response, the education department was eyeing middle-of-the-road amendments on June 12.
The Manitoba School Boards Association, Manitoba Teachers’ Society, Manitoba Association of School Superintendents, Manitoba Federation of Independent Schools and Council of Deans of Education of Manitoba were involved in consultations.
A potential model shared with those groups refined eligible majors in the high school stream (it recognized English as a second language and inclusive education as new speciality areas) and reduced related credit hours to 24 from 30.
It sought to scrap all teachables in K-8 levels and end minor ones in early years, middle years and senior years.
The proposal would have maintained the minimum elementary language course requirements and halved math, science and social sciences ones, to three credit hours from six.
“Some (stakeholders) were in favour of increasing breadth requirements or maintaining the status quo. Others recommended eliminating teachables/breadth entirely and instead accepting any undergraduate degree,” states a slide deck that summarizes early feedback.
The presentation indicated Manitoba was previously a Canadian outlier in some certification areas that have been addressed by some of the recent regulatory changes that have not come into question, such as strict timelines around background check validity and not allowing language proficiency testing.
A department scan of other provincial certification processes incorrectly claims Nova Scotia was “about to remove teachables and breadth requirements.”
The spring document bothers Anna Stokke — one of the most outspoken critics of the recent math-related changes, some of which she lobbied for in 2011— but the U of W professor told the Free Press she could have stomached the original proposal.
“But what they ended up with? We can’t live with that. It’s not acceptable,” Stokke said, adding she wants to know why the department appears to have “taken a wrecking ball to it.”
A spokesperson for Manitoba Education said several options were presented for discussion during consultations.
“The slide in question was presented as a potential approach, but upon further discussion it was determined not to be the preferred approach of the sector,” the spokesperson wrote in an email Monday in which they indicated 21 individuals took part in the extensive review.
Education deans from both U of W and the University of Manitoba corroborated those claims, as well as the president of the group that represents the province’s 38 elected school boards.
As far as Stokke is concerned, given these amendments will all but certainly affect enrolment in university departments outside education, professors of all kinds should have been consulted.
Matt Dyce, U of W’s geography department chair, echoed his colleagues’ sentiments.
“You can apply geography to anything because it is a way of knowing the world and that’s part of being a Manitoban, part of being a Canadian,” Dyce said, noting he is disappointed the province has chosen not to mandate specific geography instruction for future elementary teachers.
The geography professor added: “(The Canadian identity) has always been about being geographical — because of the vastness of the land, because of the settler-Indigenous encounter that is at the core of the country, and its meaning and its constitution and laws.”
The Progressive Conservatives have repeatedly called on Tracy Schmidt, acting minister of education, to undo the changes.
Citing the documents, which are labelled “for consultation only,” PC education critic Grant Jackson accused the province of acting on poor external advice.
“Now we know, (Schmidt) ignored her own department officials when making this decision to delete all of these requirements,” Jackson said.
maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca
Teaching certificates and qualifications
Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter
Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she joined the newsroom as a reporter in 2019. Read more about Maggie.
Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.
Every piece of reporting Maggie produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.