December 1998

Cover Story
Teacher Shortage Looms

Charts and Sidebars

Our Retirement Assumptions

Future teacher retirements can be anticipated using reasonable assumptions about likely age of retirement. The College teacher supply study uses a model that parallels some of the actuarial assumptions of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board (OTPPB). We project that one-half of teachers who reach age 55 will retire prior to the next teaching year, 50 per cent of the ever-diminishing remainder will retire each subsequent year, and those few continuing through to age 65 will retire in the year following that birthday. The model thus projects the retirement of all teachers at some point between ages 55 and 65.

Elementary and Secondary Teacher Retirements – 5 Years and 10 Years

Elementary and secondary teachers exhibit a similar age distribution. The teaching profession will lose 24 per cent of teachers with elementary certification (we grouped Primary-Junior and Junior-Intermediate for this purpose) to retirement in five years and 49 percent in 10years. For secondary teachers the corresponding numbers are 26 per cent and 47 per cent. Note: Some teachers have both elementary and secondary certificates and are counted under each panel; the total column counts each individual once.

Teacher Retirements by Ontario Region – 5 Years and 10 Years

Teacher Retirements by Certification – 5 Years and 10 Years

The needs in secondary school tech subjects are changing. The wave of retirements may assist boards in adapting to current, high technology requirements – but only if the new teachers are available with the qualifications. The Technology teacher shortage is most pronounced in Metro Toronto, Northern and Northwestern Ontario where the 10-year turnover is closer to six in 10 than the provincial five in 10. With fewer than 80 Technology Studies teacher education candidates enrolled in Ontario’s faculties of education in 1998 – an 18 per cent decline from 1997 – the staffing crisis is very near in secondary technology teaching.

Retirements by Secondary School Teaching Subject

Where there is already a high demand relative to supply – Mathematics, Sciences, Technology, and French – the retirement waves will exacerbate school boards’ hiring problems. However, the projections reveal no cause for complacency on the medium-term supply of teachers in English, History and Geography at the secondary levels.

Older Teacher Workforce

Dramatic growth in school enrolment through the 1960s brought a teacher-hiring explosion to Ontario that drew young teachers to the profession in unprecedented numbers.  This boom generation reachers retirement years in the late 1990s and through the first decade of the 21st century.

Age of Ontario Teachers and Canadian Labour Force

The hiring boom of 30 years ago leaves today an age distribution among the Ontario teacher population that is markedly different from the general Canadian workforce. The under-35 component of the Canadian employed population (41.5 per cent) is almost twice the proportion of Ontario teachers in the same age group (22.2 per cent). This difference is balanced by a corresponding disproportion among Ontario teachers aged 45 to 54 – more than two in five Ontario teachers are in this age group versus only one in five for the general working population.

New Entrants Down

At the same time that teacher retirements are rapidly reducing the supply of experienced teachers, interest in teaching as a career is at a recent historic low in Ontario. There has been a decline from a peak of 19,800 applicants to the province’s 11teacher education faculties in 1989, to fewer than 8,000 in each of the past two years.

Ontario Teacher Education Applicants

Older Male Teachers

The College study reveals that male teachers are older than female teachers. The difference is mainly evident among teachers whose certification is Primary-Junior.

Primary-Junior Teacher Retirements by 2008 by Gender

Across the province, the College study projects that eight per cent to 20 per cent more male Primary-Junior certified teachers will retire by 2008 than female teachers. The reasons for this difference may relate to women entering the profession at younger ages than men in the 1960s boom years. There may also be some tendency for women more than men to withdraw from teaching prior to normal retirement age. Whatever the source of this difference may be, it will add to the problem of an under-representation of male teachers in elementary schools over the next decade.