During the 1970s, enrolments began to decline but new concerns about the quality of education led to demands for lower class sizes and calls for an expansion of the curriculum to meet new standards and address special needs of students, particularly in such areas as special education, French Immersion, mathematics and science. By the 1980s, however, the expansion had slowed and in some cases even reversed. The 1990s has seen a shift away from a discussion of quantity to one of quality. But whether we can find teachers good enough to produce the educational performance gains the nation so urgently needs or to reach the ambitious national educational goals that high officials have recently proclaimed are quite different matters. In these respects, the adequacy of the teacher supply is very much in question, and the future supply-demand balance is a major policy concern.
Quantity is still an issue, however.
In recent years there has been a growing concern in many parts of the developed world about imminent critical teacher shortages. The purpose of this report is to examine current data on the demand for teachers in Canada. This report is part of a two-phase study. The first phase involves the collection and analysis of information about current and future teacher demand conditions and trends in Canada and the dissemination of that information to specific groups, such as governments, universities, school districts and education students, groups that have an expressed interest in, or are affected by, teacher demand information. The second phase involves a follow-up survey designed to identify and examine the policy implications of those conditions and trends.