Manitoba faces a teacher shortage but universities are struggling to recruit education students

As post-secondary students in Manitoba start their summer vacations, universities are focused on finding future teachers amid a worsening shortage.

Alysha Farrell, Brandon University's dean of education, says a "COVID cloud still hangs over schools," making it hard to recruit future teachers, even as the province and country face a shortage.

"How do we encourage more young people to become teachers?" she said. "One of the things that we can do is to ensure that public education is robustly funded so that teachers feel supported and that their work is honoured. That would go a long way ... to having more teachers sign up."

Brandon University has three education undergraduate programs including an after-degree program that still hadn't filled 30 of its 100 seatsin June.

"We're going to have some significant challenges staffing classrooms," Farrell said.

The number of students in the University of Winnipeg faculty of education decreased during the pandemic, but admissions are going back up, a spokesperson said.

In 2019-20, the school had 344 admissions. That number has dropped to 312.

The federal government's Job Bank says employment in Manitoba educational services increased every year from 2019 to 2022, with an all-time high in 2022.

At the same time, many educational institutions have chronic staff shortages, especially in rural and remote parts of Manitoba.

"There's ... a much, much more definite shortage in northern Manitoba, a huge shortage of teachers, especially in First Nations communities," said Wayne Serebrin, an associate dean at the University of Manitoba.

The University of Manitoba trains teachers in an after-degree education program, witharound 200 students in thefirst year of the two-year program. Student numbers fluctuate 2023 had some of the lowest numbers in years, but 2021 was the highest enrolment post-pandemic.

This year enrolment has increased over last year by about 14 per cent.

Adversity affects recruiting

Tammy Tutkaluk, president of the Brandon Teachers' Association, says since the pandemic, teachers have been asked to take on more responsibilities to meet students needs.

When she left the classroom two years ago, around half her students were not meeting grade level expectations because COVID-19 caused gaps in education, increased social-emotional anxiety and impacted students in other ways, she said.

When potential teachers hear about these pressures and crowded classrooms, it can deter them from entering the field, she said.

Brandon School Division does as much is it can to support teachers and students, but they need more provincial funding and resources to support teachers in classrooms, Tutkaluk said.

"People cost money, and if you want an awesome education system, you got to put people in place."

Maria Askham,who retired from teachingin December,saw the pendulum swing between more teachers than jobsand more jobs than teachers during her 30 years in the profession.

The only consistent thing has been teachers taking on more and more work, Askhamsaid.

"Every single need that comes up cannot be met by one person," she said.

Creating the best learning environment for teachers and children takes funding, but better support for the education system could encourage people to choose a teaching career, Askham said.

"The child's learning environment and the teacher's working environment go hand in hand, and that needs to be respected," Askham said.

"When our governments are choosing not to invest children, they're choosing not to invest in the future of our community, our province or country."

Solutions

Showing students the impact they can have in their communities as educators also helps with recruitment, Farrell said.

Both Farrell and Serebrin said the requirements for becoming a teacher should also be improved and streamlined.

For example, requirements for faculties of education are stringent, but students aren't always aware of them before they apply, Serebrin said. At the University of Manitoba, just under 30 per cent of students who applied to the faculty of education were denied admission because they didn't have certain requirements for certification by the province.

Serebrin hopeslearning about the teacher shortage will inspire students to get in the classroom, because they know there is the potential for jobs in an in-demand profession.

"They're really encouraged that there are positions," he said. "I was ... really buoyed up by the enthusiasm of students who, you know, had found positions."