The Ontario government is taking steps to make E-Learning a regular part of education in the province.
They are currently consulting their options with parents, they say.
In fact, the steps the Province of Ontario is taking is watering down the laws that would make online education a regular part of the public education system.
According to the ministry of education, it gives parents the option of enrolling their children for distance learning even after the Covid-19 pandemic ends. At the same time, the ministry requires school boards to offer online education during snow days as well as other school closings due to emergencies.
The province explains that online school will help students who cannot physically take lessons due to health reasons, as well as those students who attend smaller schools that are unable to offer courses that may be of interest to students.
The ministry is considering three forms of online school.
Full-day online learning for students of all ages, led by school boards, for students who cannot or prefer not to attend a physical school environment.
Individual high-school-level lessons, taught online by teachers and managed by school boards, would take place in dedicated slots in the student timetable.
Fully independent online teaching for high-school students who would prefer to learn asynchronously and with flexible hours. This option would be operated by TVO and would require payment of a fee by school boards.
A spokesman for the province said all stakeholders are currently being consulted to be able to offer new learning options starting in September.
The province notes that these expenses were initially planned in the newly announced budget.
Teachers’ unions described this provincial movement as “astonishing.”
“I find it astonishing. I don’t know what problem they’re trying to address, ”said Harvey Bischof, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF).
He also said: “To create a permanent option to take kids out of the classroom where they develop not just academically but socially and emotionally … on the face of it, it’s absolutely counterproductive.”
Sam Hammond, president of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, said he was concerned that the government was trying to undermine the public education system with this move. ” The move to virtual learning was never intended to be permanent,” he said.
” This plan will negatively affect students, increase inequities, lower standards in publicly funded education, and put us one step closer to the privatization of public education”
Following negotiations, the ministry of education’s initial proposal to require four online credits to graduate from high school was reduced to two.
In Ontario, online learning was taking place through school boards long before the pandemic. According to the ministry, 60,000 students studied distance learning in the 2018-2019 school year. This number has been increasing annually by about 16% since 2011.
