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Stay informed. Stay empowered. Build a stronger future for early learning.

Stay ahead with the latest updates on the Early Childhood Education (ECE) workforce. Gain access to valuable tools and insights that drive policy development. Explore current policy standards, wage trends, and essential educational resources tailored to support ECE professionals. Whether you’re an educator, policymaker, or advocate, you’ll find the information you need to strengthen and advance the ECE workforce.

WEBSITE

Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario (AECEO)

The Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario (AECEO) is the professional association for ECEs in Ontario, established in 1950. It advocates for respect, recognition, and appropriate wages and working conditions for ECEs. The AECEO's mission is to build and support a strong collective voice for ECEs.


WEBSITE

Association of Early Childhood Educators of Newfoundland and Labrador (AECENL)

The Association of Early Childhood Educators of Newfoundland and Labrador (AECENL) is an organization dedicated to supporting ECEs through advocacy, training, and certification. It promotes high-quality early learning, collaborates with stakeholders, and enhances professional standards. AECENL works to improve policies and services, ensuring excellence in early childhood education across Newfoundland and Labrador.


REPORT/RESEARCH

Knowing Our Numbers

Knowing Our Numbers is a collaborative project that focuses on understanding Ontario's early childhood education workforce. Based on data from nearly 6,000 professionals, it highlights demographics, challenges, and opportunities. The findings aim to inform policies for improving recruitment, retention, and professional development in the sector, ensuring better early learning and child care services.


WEBSITE

Professional Pay and Decent Work for All Campaign

This campaign launched by the Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario embarked on a new project with support from the Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development and the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care. The initiatives include community mobilization forums and a workshop uniting ECEs and allies to share knowledge, shape policy, and advocate for fair professional pay.


Child Care Now

Child Care Now is dedicated to advocating for a publicly funded, inclusive, quality, non-profit child care system. Their organization is non-profit, membership-based and regionally representative.


PRESENTATION

Valuing Early Childhood Educators: The Heart of Quality Early Learning

This presentation outlines key strategies for recognizing and valuing early childhood educators, emphasizing fair compensation and benefits, better working conditions, strong leadership, professional learning, skilled supervision, and opportunities for career advancement. The session aims to highlight the critical need for these supports to foster a valued and supported early childhood education workforce.


PRESENTATION

The Importance of a Qualified and Valued Workforce

In this presentation Dr. Emis Akbari discusses the critical importance of a qualified and valued ECE workforce as the foundation for creating positive, lasting impacts on early childhood education and community development. It also features promising practices for the ECE workforce including recruitment and retention, wages, and benefits.


PRESENTATION

Ontario's Early Childhood Education Workforce: Trends and Insights from Hamilton

Presented by Dr. Emis Akbari, Executive Director of the Atkinson Centre at OISE/University of Toronto, to Hamilton's Early Learning and Child Care sector on February 25, 2025. This presentation explores key trends within Ontario's ECE workforce, including job satisfaction, discrimination, equity, stress levels, and wages, focusing specifically on Hamilton's insights. Results are from the Knowing Our Numbers study.