Ontario faces a decline in the proportion of qualified RECEs working in the child care sector
January 30, 2025
Ontario’s progress toward the national $10-a-day child-care program is facing significant hurdles, as reported in a recent news article by Allison Jones. A 2024 annual report from the Ministry of Education reveals that, although the total number of Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs) in Ontario has increased, the proportion of RECEs working in the sector has gone down.
Ontario’s $10aDay program funding agreement with the Government of Canada says the province will take steps to ensure that 60 per cent of those working in licensed child care will be RECEs by 2025-26. In 2022, 58.9 per cent of full-time staff in licensed child-care programs were RECEs. That number has now dropped to 56 per cent.
Recruitment and Retention Challenges
Alana Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Ontario (AECEO) told Canadian Press journalist Allison Jones the decline can be attributed to the failure to retain qualified staff. She said, “RECEs have been telling us for years that wages and working conditions are their biggest challenge.” Powell said.
Ontario has set a wage floor of $24.86 per hour for RECEs starting in 2025, but advocates, including Child Care Now, argue that this is not enough. Higher wages, along with a wage grid and comprehensive benefits such as health care and pensions, are essential to solving the recruitment and retention crisis.
Expansion Efforts at Risk
The province has pledged to create 86,000 new child-care spaces by the end of 2026, but only 27,993 have been added so far. This is due, in large part, to staffing shortages, which make it difficult for centres to operate at full capacity, let alone expand.
It is estimated that a total of 14,700 new RECEs would be needed by 2025-26 to reach the province’s space creation target. If the numbers of RECEs working in the sector continue to decrease year by year, the provincial government’s expansion goals will not be achieved.
The Ontario government’s financial support for expansion is weak leaving not-for-profit operators on their own to find funds to increase spaces. The federal government has announced up to $1 billion in low-cost loans for public and non-profit child-care providers to build and renovate facilities. However, the funds won’t be available until spring 2025.