Canada prides itself on being multicultural especially by valuing diversity. The Canadian society consists of educational ramifications considering as being excellent and equitable with inclinable performance and low impact on socioeconomic and immigration paradigms. Important to note that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is one of the crucial policies about child care, language rights, immigration and the indigenous people have influenced equity in the country’s education sector. Therefore, there are no long-term and emerging inequalities in the education sector among the indigenous people. This paper presents issues related to the strategies for equity and inclusion in Canadian education systems. There are two main strands for this work which include the overall focus on closing the gaps in educational achievement as well as improving students’ success. The second strand is developing strategies and actions that aim at advancing an equitable and/or inclusive education system in the country.
The National Context of Educational Equity in Canada
The Canadian national policy is dedicated to multiculturalism in education. People in Canada integrate into their society hence celebrating and valuing the diversity of their identities, cultures, and experiences. Therefore, this approach is enshrined in the overall Canadian Multiculturalism Act which was established in 1971 and then formalized in the Rights and Freedom Charter in 1988 (Campbell, 2020). In this approach, it provided equity to all children who are resident in Canada to have access to free, publicly funded school education. Notably, most of these schools are in French or English language. Another crucial strategy to ensure equity and inclusion in Canadian education is through ensuring that the federal government is responsible for funding and supporting students who attend the on-reverse and band operated schools whereby over 60 percent of the First Nations students attend these particular schools (Campbell, 2020). The overall history and the entire consequences of the government’s treatment of indigenous populations are also underlying issues on equity and inclusion in the Canadian education system. Another significant approach to ensure equity and inclusion in Canadian education is the revision of the Education Act under the government of the New Democratic Party (NDP). In this strategy, there was a policy and program memorandum in Ontario, PPM 119 which focused on the development and implementation of the school board policies on matters of antiracism and ethnocultural equity (Rezai-Rashti, Segeren & Martino, 2017). This is one of the crucial strategies in Canada that advocated for equity and inclusion in the education system allowing all the students in the country to access fully funded education. Over time, in Ontario, there was a change in the policy discussed above PPM 119 whereby the government eliminated the antiracism, equity, and access division that had been incorporated to prevent instances of racism in the education system as well as diversifying programming in the schools (Rezai-Rashti et al., 2017). In revising these policies, the government came up with strategies and policies that focused on increasing accountability, standardization, and austerity in the education system.
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Closing the Gaps in Educational Achievements and Improving Student Success
In Canada, the newly elected government announced three main priorities that tend to increase equity and inclusion in the overall education system. These include increased student achievement, reduced gaps in student achievement as well as increased public confidence in all publicly funded education. Within this perspective, two main strategies were key to reform which are the literacy and numeracy strategies for both the elementary schools and student learning to eighteen strategies in secondary schools (Campbell, 2020). Important to note that these two strategies aimed at increasing the attention to capacity building hence supporting development in the district and school leadership hence advancing the three main goals mentioned above. The literacy and numeracy strategies started with the overall announcement of including every child in the program (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2017). At this point, a nine-point literacy and numeracy strategy were therefore established which included school district improvement plans and targets, teams that supported improvements in both literacy and numeracy at all levels of education such as regional, districts, and the school levels. To increase student success as a way of reducing the instances of racism and increase equity and inclusion had several phases such as the development of school district leadership capacity (Sensoy et al., 2017). The education ministry invested in the appointment of the student success leaders at the top management level in all schools to support the overall focus on the success of all schools. Important to note that, these student success leaders aimed at developing a student success action plan that improved the welfare of the students (Tamtik & Guenter, 2019). In most cases where racism was evidenced, there are strict measures taken to prevent its rampancy. For instance, the student’s leaders at the school management were to represent the grievances of the other students as a way of improving equity and inclusion in the school management system. Additionally, it should be noted that the action plans were formed within the student success strategy which included increasing literacy learning, culture, and caring support for the students within their endeavors. The other crucial phase is the identification of struggling students and actions that aimed in ensuring these students access schools and achieve their ultimate goals. In this phase, the ministry aimed at increasing the number of teachers to reach all the students in the country in all regions without racism.
Developing Strategies and Actions to Advance an Equitable and Inclusive Education System
The equity and inclusive strategy in education retains the ultimate goal of reducing gaps in student achievement but as well updates diversity, equity, and the entire student inclusion in the education. In Canada, new reforms and policies were introduced and revised to implement a system-wide approach to identify and remove discriminatory biases as well as systematic barriers in the inclusion in the education system. In implementing most of the policies in this perspective, the Canadian government researched the Ontario schools to draw their conclusion over the policies (Dalton et al., 2019). This study indicated that the concept of the school board’s having equity and inclusive education strategies improved the overall performance of the school, leadership hence advancing success in these areas. Important to note that, while removing systematic barriers and discrimination in all forms in the education system, most of the policies are ingrained in the issues of race, ethnicity, gender identity as well as sexual orientation among poverty which needs to be more focused on. In this perspective, also curriculum revisions in the Canadian education system were undertaken to ensure a high level of equality and inclusion in the entire system. In areas where issues like racism and other inclusive measures were not promoted, then the leaders of the schools like principals had to be held responsible (Tuters & Portelli, 2017). Leadership, governance practices, and human resource practices have the mandate to increase equity and inclusion in training for educators and board trustees for performance appraisals hence increasing diversity in recruitment and promotion of the education workforce.
References
Campbell, C. (2020). Educational equity in Canada: The case of Ontario’s strategies and actions to advance excellence and equity for students. School Leadership & Management, 1-20. Dalton, E. M., Lyner-Cleophas, M., Ferguson, B. T., & McKenzie, J. (2019). Inclusion, universal design, and universal design for learning in higher education: South Africa and the United States. African Journal of Disability (Online), 8, 1-7. Rezai-Rashti, G., Segeren, A., & Martino, W. (2017). The new articulation of equity education in neoliberal times: the changing conception of social justice in Ontario. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 15(2), 160-174. Sensoy, O., & DiAngelo, R. (2017). Is everyone really equal?: An introduction to key concepts in social justice education. Teachers College Press. Tamtik, M., & Guenter, M. (2019). Policy Analysis of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategies in Canadian Universities–How Far Have We Come?. Canadian Journal of Higher Education/Revue canadienne d'enseignement supérieur, 49(3), 41-56. Tuters, S., & Portelli, J. (2017). Ontario school principals and diversity: are they prepared to lead for equity?. International Journal of Educational Management.
