Children will inherit the world, which is why, as an Early Child Educator, you’re performing a very important task, making sure the future is a bright one. As an Early Childhood Educator, you support children’s learning and development, responding to their unique interests and needs. In this demanding, but rewarding career, you have to be passionate about working with children and families.
There’s currently a shortage of Early Childhood Educators in Ontario, which led to the creation of a $4000 bursary for domestic students starting our ECE diploma in January of 2023. If it’s a career you’re interested in, here’s why now’s the time to take part in this special version of the program:
It’s funded!
This opportunity is funded in partnership with the City of Toronto, The Region of Peel, The Region of Durham, The Region of Halton, the Province of Ontario and Government of Canada under the new Canada-Ontario Early Childhood Workforce Agreement, which provides one-time federal funding to support the retention and recruitment of a high-quality child care and early years workforce.
What this means is that you get $1000 for each one of our four semesters! This funding agreement is acknowledging and addressing that there's a shortage of Early Childhood Educators in the field, and so the program’s supporters are providing bursaries to create more qualified, work-ready ECEs. You don’t even have to apply for the bursary, because as a domestic student, once you apply and are accepted to the program, the bursary is applied to your account 10 days into the semester.
It’s fast!
Our typical ECE program takes two years. With our fast-tracked program, you can do it in only 16 months.
The program comes with unique hands-on experience
At Centennial College, we have two of our own lab schools in the form of our East York and Progress Campus Childcare Centres. They are fully functioning childcare centres, with infants, toddlers and preschoolers, but they also are learning environments, and include observation rooms, on top of opportunities for hands-on learning in the form of students doing field placements there. Either way, you get over 500 hours of hands-on field placement experience.
You’re ready to work by the time you’re done the program
Completing our Early Childhood Education program means you come out with a whole bunch of skills, including healthy development, health and wellness, curriculum design and advocacy, making you very, very hireable.
But most importantly, you come out with all of the documentation you need to start working right away, including police checks. This documentation often leads to a delay in getting hired, so having it taken care of during the program will give you a head start.
Your skills are transferrable, so there’s a lot of different things you can do
One of the big assumptions about Early Childhood Educators is that they can only work in childcare centres. In fact, ECE’s can do a lot of things. Once you're a qualified Early Childhood Educator, you can also work with boards of education who will hire ECEs in their classrooms, with children and families at drop in centers, shelters and community service programs, or you can also open your own home childcare centre. There’s a lot of places you can go.
No matter which you take, our Early Childhood Education programs can get you into the field by giving you the skills to teach our youngest people what they need to begin their own journey through life, and once you’re in the field, you’ll be helping to make the next generation happy and healthy.
By: Anthony Geremia