An Investigation of the Career Paths of Internationally Trained Early Childhood Educators Transitioning into Early Learning Programs (PDF) conducted by Shelly Mehta, Zeenat Janmohamed, and Carl Corter, the Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development.
Some background (taken from the report):
“In 2006, the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Ontario in partnership with Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office and the School of Early Childhood at George Brown College established the Access to Early Childhood Education program (referred to as the ECE Bridging Program) to address the need to bridge internationally trained early childhood educators into the Canadian workforce and to rectify the labour force shortage in the early childhood sector. During the second phase of the project, additional funding was secured expanding the project’s capacity by providing direct services in two identified high need immigrant communities in Hamilton and Ottawa. The project added Alqonguin College, Mohawk College and Hamilton’s Affiliated Services for Children and Youth to its partnership roster. In the last decade there have been an increasing number of internationally trained educators seeking early childhood equivalency in Ontario (AECEO 2011). Despite a wide variety of education credentials and professional experience, like other immigrants, early childhood educators with international training are not recognized by employers for their knowledge and expertise. As a result, the ECE Bridging Program was developed to provide an opportunity to combine international education with relevant early childhood courses in Ontario that would lead to ECE credential equivalency”.
This research examines the pathway to employment in the field of early childhood education (ECE) for internationally trained practitioners and the experiences of internationally trained professionals in the ECE Bridging Program.
