Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia
[permission
to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]
My experience as a Deputy Minister of Education taught me that seemingly simple solutions to complex problems are not as simple as they first appear. The January 4th Globe and Mail opinion article (“Canada needs to invest in tutoring for students falling behind”) proposes that the Government of Canada fund tutoring in K-12 schools to address learning losses caused by COVID-19. It is an intriguing proposal, but before adopting it there are several issues that the authors do not address that may subvert the intended outcome they seek.
Long before COVID, small, rural,
and remote regions of Canada have found it challenging to recruit and retain
qualified teachers. Even in urban areas recruitment can be problematic,
especially recruiting and retaining qualified French-language teachers. COVID-19
has prompted many experienced teachers to resign, making staffing even more
difficult and exhausting the supply of teachers who fill in for teachers who
are ill. These conditions make access to education an equity issue that has
implications for tutoring.
Unless they are experienced
teachers, tutors will need to rely upon the diagnoses and prescriptions of
experienced teachers for their tutoring efforts to succeed. Teacher shortages
and teachers overburdened with the demands on schooling imposed by the pandemic
are not trivial matters that will, in turn, affect the deployment and
supervision of tutors. How will regions and school districts facing recruitment,
retention, and daily teacher absences provide the support that tutors will need
to be effective?
Inequities in access to the internet,
equipment, and bandwidth during COVID have not been remedied. The failed
natural experiment in online education during COVID suggests that tutoring via
the internet is likely to be even less successful.
The brief opinion article does
not indicate what mechanisms will be established to ensure the quality of the
tutoring experience for vulnerable students. Teacher certification is a
mechanism that provides some assurance that even the least qualified teachers
are unlikely to do harm to the students for whom they are responsible. Certificated
teachers must undergo background record checks and meet minimum standards. What
standards should tutors meet to undertake responsibility for working with
students?
The opinion piece argues that the
Government of Canada should provide resources that will be spent in the
education sector. As most people are aware, education is a provincial
jurisdiction. Will the provinces accept money from the government of Canada for
education? Will all provinces accept the resources? Quebec often insists that it receive
resources without restrictions about how the resources are spent. What
conditions will the provinces place on the receipt of those funds?
If provinces accept resources from
the Government of Canada, how will they distribute the resources? Will
resources be distributed through school boards? Do school districts have the
capacity to use the resources to hire and supervise tutors?
When will the tutoring be
provided? If during the school day, will teachers’ unions and support-staff
unions say that the tutors, whether face-to-face, or remote are “doing
bargaining unit work” prohibited by the contracts they have with their
employers?
Parents will want assurance that
the provision of tutoring does not absolve school systems from the obligation
they have to address the negative impact of COVID-19. Many will be concerned
that tutoring simply relieves school systems of the pressure for addressing the
educational needs of students. “Yes, she’s behind, but the tutor is handling
that!”
My intent is not to impede
consideration of this proposal. The concerns and question I raise are ones that
must be addressed to ensure that a well-intentioned proposal does not compound
the challenge that the proposal is designed to address and exacerbate the
problem.