Northern Ontario universities to get more funded spots for teachers college

Sudbury's Laurentian University is getting ready to write acceptance letters to an extra 30 aspiring teachers. 

Those extra spots for the French education program at the Northern Ontario school is part of a recent funding announcement from the provincial government to address a teacher shortage by creating an additional 2,600 spots in universities across Ontario.

Natalie Poulin-Lehoux, Laurentian's associate vice-president of francophone affairs, said the province had previously  allocated around 200 spots for its French-language bachelor of education program.

"Thirty additional spots is certainly a nice addition to those 200 and should definitely go a long way in helping our French education in the north," she said.

Poulin-Lehoux said it will be a lot of work to fill those spots since the application deadline for the next cohort, set to begin classes in the fall, was in December.

But she said there are students each year who just fall short of being accepted into the program, which Laurentian can contact with a new offer.

Graydon Raymer, the dean of education and professional students at Nipissing University in North Bay, said he doesn't yet know how many extra teachers college spots his school will get.

Raymer said part of the reason is that Nipissing already accepts more students than it is funded for by the provincial government.

"Essentially, we only collect tuition dollars and we don't receive the government grant above a certain number of students for our program," he said. 

"That's been the case for the past few years."

Raymer said at Nipissing's most recent convocation ceremony there were more than 450 new teacher graduates, Raymer said.

He said the university is ready to accept more students, but the short notice before the fall semester will make things complicated.

"Certainly for every student we take on it costs more, right?" he said. "It's more instructors, more support, more administrative demand on the program."

Raymer added that Nipissing has had good conversations with the province, explaining the demand for new teachers in northern Ontario and what support universities in the region need to meet it.