With plenty of change on the childcare front, Canada’s Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Karina Gould visited George Brown College to take the pulse of early childhood education (ECE) students at a roundtable event.
Gould met with more than a dozen students and faculty from the School of Early Childhood at Casa Loma Campus on November 8. The minister took the opportunity to gauge how future early childhood educators feel about recent government actions, including the Ontario-Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement. The federal and Ontario governments announced the deal in March 2022 to pave the way for a $10-a-day childcare plan and expanded capacity in the system.
George Brown is currently delivering a tuition-free compressed ECE diploma program to address the critical workforce shortage in the childcare sector. Working with municipal, provincial and federal government partners, we launched the 14-month program in July to help get highly qualified professionals into childcare centres faster.
“All levels of government have come together to recognize the importance of early years and the need for childcare to support not only children’s learning and development but also families’ ability to work outside the home,” School of Early Childhood Director Patricia Chorney Rubin said.
“With our compressed program, we’re proud to be part of the solution to get more highly qualified ECEs into the workforce faster.”
