Child Care Now: White Paper: Supporting a Highly Qualified ECE Workforce
Photo by AMONWAT DUMKRUT
In June, Child Care Now released a white paper, A Vision and Roadmap for Increasing Educator Qualifications in Licensed, Centre-Based Child Care: Supporting a Highly Qualified Early Learning and Child Care Workforce in Canada
The main argument of the white paper is that “building a quality public early learning and child care (ELCC) system requires a highly qualified, well-supported, and properly compensated workforce. Developing and supporting such a workforce requires clarifying and reimagining employment roles, scopes of practice, and competencies. It also requires all governments, post-secondary institutions, and service providers to work together on a clear plan to increase qualifications, provide meaningful professional learning, and ensure workplace supports are in place.”
The document begins with a review of the current situation, noting:
• With only a small portion staff in licensed child care centres across Canada required to hold a one-, two-, or three-year ECE-related education qualification to meet provincial and territorial requirements, the educational qualifications of the ELCC workforce overall are generally low.
• Historically, Canada has ranked very low for ELCC workforce qualification standards…. Canada still does not meet UNICEF’s Report Card benchmark five [set in 2008], which says that 80% of all staff in a program should have a minimum level of education.
• As of 2024, nine provinces and territories had some type of certification process in place to classify educators by their educational qualifications, or, in the case of Ontario, enable them to be registered with the College of Early Childhood Educators.
• The ECEC in Canada 2025 report noted that some provinces have mandated a small number of professional learning hours to be completed annually. However, this requirement is not enough to support wellbeing, recruitment, and retention, nor is it sufficient to adequately contribute to increasing broad qualifications across all ELCC employment roles.
Key challenges faced in increasing qualifications identified include:
• Variations in provincial and territorial legislation and regulations
• Post-secondary access and capacity
• Community needs, practice realities, and compensation
The international ELCC community has produced some promising ideas:
• New Zealand’s 2002 10-year strategic plan provided clear timelines, significant increases of public funding, and simultaneous regulatory changes to support increasing educational qualifications. A recent report states that, as of 2023, 69% of staff held an educational qualification.
• Since the mid-1990s, researchers have discussed the importance of international recommendations for setting and committing to clear targets for increasing the educational qualifications of staff working in ELCC. In recent years, several OECD reports and a European Commission report have continued this work with a focus on employment roles. Recommendations include:
⁃ the introduction of new minimum educational qualifications by first prioritizing those in supervisory or leadership positions such as centre directors.
⁃ suggesting that specialized or differentiated educational qualifications must align with unique employment roles and responsibilities in ELCC environments, whereby one broad qualification (i.e., a degree or a diploma) is not sufficient for the complexity of the diverse work.
• Several OECD reports suggest the use of ‘alternative pathways’ (moving from untrained to trained) or ‘diversifying and expanding pathways into the profession’ to increase qualifications. These approaches suggest there could be potential equivalencies between education from outside of the ELCC sector to formal ECE-related educational qualifications. These reports also suggest that continuous professional learning in ECE-related subjects should be required for all ELCC staff and that less qualified staff should formally work toward increasing educational qualifications or specific certifications such as ‘micro-credits or micro-credentials for the untrained.
The white paper’s vision sets out the following employment roles as fundamental to a well-functioning workforce, ensuring the delivery of high-quality, licensed, centre-based ELCC programs:
1. Early Childhood Assistants (EAs) (also includes roles like Early Childhood Educator Assistant, Child Care Assistant, or similar)
2. Early Childhood Educators (ECEs)
3. Inclusion Support Specialists/Resource Consultants
4. Staff Supervisors
5. Program Directors
The paper provides a table with summary outlines of these six roles, and also detailed descriptions of each role and its education requirements in Appendix 1 at https://childcarenow.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2026/06/Vision-Roadmap-Educators-Matter-June-2026.pdf
The vision also outlines a variety of issues around wages, working conditions, leadership and community of practice, inclusivity, community responsiveness, diversity, non-contact opportunities for building collegiality, job security, work schedules, and opportunities for career advancement that need to be addressed long with professional development and educational standards.
Finally, the paper concludes by providing a 10-year roadmap and policy recommendations towards achieving the goals set in the Vision, including the following:
Ongoing consultation and collaboration:
• Convene a federal workforce council
• Convene provincial and territorial workforce tables
• Engage in sector-wide workforce consultations, including engaging with Indigenous educators, communities, and early learning partners, on increasing qualifications, professional learning, employment roles, and competencies
Concurrent system-building:
• Develop and implement provincial and territorial wage grids to align with the increase in qualifications and set targets over 10 years
• Develop and propose regulatory amendments and legislative processes
• Increase availability of ECE diploma and degree programs and increase capacity of post-secondary institutions
• Increase funding from provincial governments, post-secondary institutions, and service providers to support staff to increase qualifications and practical experience
• Develop workplace training models, mentorship, apprenticeship supports, and additional qualifications (AQs) or micro-credentials in collaboration with post-secondaries, service providers, and professional learning organizations, and the workforce
• Recognize professional learning, alternative learning pathways, and years of experience as equivalent to formal educational qualifications in provincial/territorial policy or legislation for those close to retirement during transition to higher minimum qualifications
• Align legislative and regulatory amendments on increasing workforce qualifications with sufficient funding to address poor working conditions in ELCC settings