Hooray for teachers

Teachers worldwide have their special day coming up when we salute them for their contribution to society. Let’s make this a teaching moment by sharing some stats on teachers in Canada today.

Over one-third of public secondary school teachers are under the age of 40

There were 413,667 teachers working at Canadian public schools during in 2022/2023, approximately three in four of whom were women. There were 4.5% more public school teachers teaching in 2022/2023 compared with a decade earlier.

Over one-third of public secondary school teachers (35.7%) in 2022/2023 were under the age of 40 and there were more teachers under the age of 25 than over the age of 65 (7,818 versus 5,655).

In 2022/2023, school boards spent $45.4 billion on teacher wages and salaries.

Number of private and independent schoolteachers has risen by two-thirds in a decade

There were 28,989 teachers working at private and independent secondary schools in 2022/2023, up 303 from the previous year and up by more than two-thirds (67.2%) from a decade earlier.

In 2022/2023, just over two in three (70.3%) teachers working at private or independent secondary schools were women.

Just over one-quarter of college expenditures go to teacher salaries

During the 2021 Census, 88,955 Canadians reported that they were employed as college or other vocational instructors.

Our most recent Financial Information of Colleges survey reported that Canadian colleges spent over $4.4 billion on teacher salaries in 2022/2023, accounting for just over one-quarter (28.6%) of total college expenditures.

Over half of university professors are men

In 2023/2024, there were 48,960 full-time teachers at Canadian universities, of which 56.5% were men.

The median salary of full-time teachers at Canadian universities—all academic ranks combined—was $151,700 in 2023/2024, up 3.9% from a year earlier and 11.9% higher than five years earlier.