Ontario, the most populous province in Canada, is strongly committed to the use of new technologies in learning.
On February 1, the Ministry of Education presented an online high school course description website.
This platform is especially relevant, since the province has imposed as a requirement that students who complete the stage in the 2023-2024 academic year have completed at least two subjects of this type to obtain their secondary school diploma.
Students need, as explained by the Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, to develop the necessary skills to function in an increasingly digital world.
Likewise, he has stressed that this strategy will provide students with greater flexibility and choice.
The province's school system offers students a wide margin to choose subjects during the secondary stage (from 14 to 18 years), which can be either semester or year.
Among the offerings that can be taken
online
are Geography for 9th grade (14 years old), Mathematical Principles for 10th grade, Biology for 11th grade and Chemistry for 12th grade.
More information
“Online education is much more accessible, and in the future it will be combined with face-to-face training”
The initiative faces some technical imbalances and a critical sector of parents, teachers and schools, who ask, among other things, to delay its implementation.
In fact, parents against the measure can request in writing at the beginning of the course that their children be exempt.
Still, the move places Ontario's education system at the forefront of the world in this area.
“It's about broadening the horizon of opportunity by ensuring that everyone acquires the skills required to take advantage of online education.
In short, it is an innovative measure that will probably soon be imitated by other countries”, predicts the director of the UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean, Francesc Pedró.
And he adds: “It's a simple idea:
Since 2020, the Ministry of Education has allocated just over 154 million Canadian dollars (about 107 million euros) to school commissions for infrastructure and equipment that favor online learning.
Pedró explains that the decision has to do with a long-standing tradition in Canada and the United States regarding distance education.
In addition, he says that the province of Ontario is seeking to capitalize on the considerable investments it has made to bring broadband to schools.
The provincial government ensures that almost 100% of primary and secondary schools have quality access to the Internet;
only a handful of centers located in rural communities continue to present connectivity problems.
The Ontario authorities were considering the idea of
online subjects
mandatory since 2019. However, the arrival of covid-19 changed the landscape.
Students will be able to validate one of the compulsory subjects among all the ones they took remotely during the confinement periods.
Faced with the question of why it has not been possible to validate both thanks to all the subjects that were taken remotely during the health crisis, Emmanuel Duplàa, professor of educational technologies at the University of Ottawa, says: "Teachers had to adapt quickly, in a very difficult context.
The effort was commendable, but they were not the ideal courses”.
Duplàa also affirms that it has been wise to implement this provision at the secondary level: “Students are required to have a degree of autonomy, a structure to work alone.
In elementary school that is extremely difficult.
protests against the system
Ontario had initially established four mandatory online courses for a high school diploma, but reduced the provision to two after protests from various quarters.
However, the voices against continue to manifest.
The province's Catholic Schools Commission points out that, despite the fact that knowledge through digital channels is a cardinal element for future opportunities for students, the requirement should be implemented from September 2023 to allow a more adequate preparation by all. the actors involved.
The Ontario Francophone Teachers Association also stresses the benefits of online education, but says it's too early to put in place the provision given the time young people have spent learning remotely due to the pandemic.
In an article in
The Conversation
, Lana Parker, a professor at the University of Windsor's School of Education, sums up criticism from various unions, parents and academics: Teenagers already spend too many hours in front of a screen, not all homes have the same degree of familiarity with new technologies and the face-to-face experience is more enriching because students learn beyond the marked content.
In addition, Ella Parker points out that compulsory education opens the door to cuts in the number of teachers and the privatization of certain aspects of the educational system.
Francesc Pedró comments that the Government of Ontario should pay more attention to clarifying various details of this measure.
He indicates that they want to centralize from a single provincial provider, thus reducing the autonomy of school commissions.
He also says that the role of monitors and teachers should be specified.
“Perhaps the measure would have been better received if, instead of two compulsory courses out of 40, there had been two optional courses.
It is necessary not to fail with the implementation of this initiative, considered a significant step at the international level”, he adds.
Emmanuel Duplàa adds: “A fundamental issue is the training of teachers for this transition.
It is not just about transforming a course, but about transforming the teacher.
It goes beyond moving a face-to-face course to a screen.
More emphasis should be placed on the type of work, on homework, on innovative ways of monitoring student performance”.
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