By NICK STEWART
As provincial and federal governments begin to focus increasingly on the subject of daycare, Collège Boréal’s early childhood educator program is garnering more and more student attention.
“Federally and provincially, there’s more emphasis being put on early childhood education, where they call it ‘seamless childcare’,” says Laurie Rancourt, vice-president of academics, Collège Boréal.
“The push is to increase the number of quality day cares, and to develop a better transition from the daycare to the primary school, so there’s a lot of demand for workers right now. With a couple of new day cares that are going to be opening and school boards that are involved in daycare, there really are a lot of jobs for early childhood educators.”
Considered one of the college’s core programs since the school’s inception in 1995, Boréal’s early childhood education program has been expanded province-wide in recent years to help meet this rising demand.
The program is now offered throughout two-thirds of the province via the college’s seven campuses in Northern Ontario and Toronto. Rancourt says this effectively provides a strong, varied offering to the broadest possible base of francophone students. Currently, 90 students are enrolled in the program province-wide, 36 of which are slated to graduate this year.
In order to accommodate students far from the school’s main Sudbury campus, Boréal uses multiple methods to deliver its early childhood education. These include a combination of face-to-face classes, videoconferencing and online classes, which allow students to remain in their communities, Rancourt says.
“Because there’s a strong, generalized need for early childhood education graduates throughout Northern Ontario, having students learn and stay in their community is just as important for them as it is for us. So it’s not just meeting focused needs of industry, but it’s also meeting the needs of the community, which is very key.”
Due to the broad and growing need for early childhood education workers, the school’s ability to produce bilingual graduates is a crucial selling point, both for prospective students as well as employers.
“It’s absolutely important to have people who can work in both languages because you want children to start off in a francophone daycare and then make a good transition into a francophone primary school,” Rancourt says. “Given that they’re coming from francophone families, you want them to be in a franco-dominant setting right at the beginning of their educational career.”
Upon graduating, students have the opportunity to find work with children up to the age of 12 in a variety of fields, including preschools, daycare centers, parent resource centers and grade school recreation programs.
As part of the program’s curriculum, Boréal provides students a practical education in child care as well as a more theoretical education in such areas as psychology and sociology. This varied approach helps students to meet industry requirements while providing them with an education, which expands their career opportunities.
“Even though they’re coming to us to train for work in a specific profession, we want to make sure they have a broad level of knowledge, so it enhances their practical employability and makes them more prepared to find different types of work, if they so choose. It’s a very comprehensive, very solid program, and it’s ensuring we’re not just meeting the needs of students, but we’re also meeting the needs of industry.”
