Background Information
There are over 200,000 certified teachers in Ontario. Being certified as a teacher by the Ontario College of Teachers opens up professional opportunities for teachers of children and adolescents as it allow you to teach in Ontario's public and Catholic schools. Over two million students attend Ontario's 4,800 publicly funded schools in Ontario. About one third of these are Catholic schools.
Teachers play an essential role in the overall education system of Ontario. Their responsibilities include:
- preparing lesson plans and teaching classes
- encouraging students in their studies and evaluating student work and progress
- supervising students' behaviour and maintaining classroom discipline
- demonstrating good citizenship and respect for all groups of people, and
- acting as teacher-advisers for students in Grades 7 to 11, for example, helping students complete their annual education plans and monitoring their school performance and progress toward their career goals
The Ontario College of Teachers regulates the teaching profession in Ontario and governs its members. Among other areas, it is responsible for:
- setting requirements for teaching certificates and maintaining a provincial register of teachers
- setting standards for teacher training programs at Ontario universities, and monitoring the training programs to ensure they meet the standards
- developing codes of conduct for teachers, and investigating complaints against teachers, and making decisions about teacher discipline, and fitness to practise
For more information about the teaching profession in Ontario, please see the Ontario government document "The Teaching Profession".
Legislation
The teaching profession and the education system in Ontario are regulated by:
- The Ontario Education Act
- The Ontario Schools Code of Conduct
- The Ontario College of Teachers Act and Regulations
If you would like to know more about these pieces of legislation, visit the following two websites: