Province adds 60 spaces to NSCC early childhood educator program

With the fourth and final year of the pre-primary expansion coming in September 2020, the Nova Scotia government is increasing the number of spaces available to train early childhood educators.

The AkerleyCampus of the Nova Scotia Community College is getting an extra $283,000 to create 60morespaces, starting in January. It will double the number of students currently in the program there.

Last year, the provincial government funded 135 new seats across the province.

Zach Churchill, the education and early childhood development minister, made the announcement Thursday. He made the announcement in a classroom with students from theprogram present.

He wished them well entering a job market with plenty of demand for their skills.

"We need about 350 more over the coming two years," Churchill told reporters afterwards. "That's to accommodate the growing regulated childcare sectorwe believe will need approximately 100 new early childhood educators to satisfy the demand in that growing sector.

"And we're going to need around 250 for the pre-primary implementation as well."

Next fall, the provincial government is expected to expand the pre-primary program one final timeto 48 more schools across Nova Scotia. There are more than 3,000 four-year-olds currentlyenrolled in the play-based program at 205schools.

The pre-primary program has made it hard for some daycare operationsto keep staff or find new workers because the pre-primary jobs pay more and include pension and benefits.

The minister recently set up a working group to examine staffingissues and the issue of what the province is paying ECEs and what private and non-profit daycare operators can pay.

One of the other issuesis staff-to-child ratios.

Looking for workers outside the province

Churchill said the province was working hard to find enough workers to meet the demand, first by more training and also by trying to lure back about 2,000 Nova Scotians trained but not workingas ECEs. There is also an effort to find trained workers in other countries.

As far as training was concerned, the minister said this was the extent of expansion plans.

PC MLA Tim Halman called this latest expansion of training "a step in the right direction," but he said his party would be keeping a close eye on the situation to see if it was enough to alleviate the "extreme" problems being faced by daycare operators across Nova Scotia.

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