Ontario Liberals to bring back optional Grade 13 if elected

The Ontario Liberals are promising to bring back an optional Grade 13 if elected in the June provincial election.

Ontario has not offered Grade 13 since 2003, but Liberal leader Steven Del Duca said they are planning to bring it back, “for students who want to catch up on lost years during the pandemic.”

The party estimates it would cost $295 million over 4 years and say it provides a “structured alternative to the informal and often-discouraged victory lap.”

Grade 9 student Tessa Jagiellowicz, who was among several teens the Liberal leader glad-handed with before his announcement, said she’d benefit from an extra year of school.

“I feel like Grade 13 would be like closure for me to get a full normal four years,” she said.

This election promise comes on the heels of a pledge by the Liberals on Thursday to cap class sizes at 20 students.

Both initiatives will require 10,000 teachers, the party said. When asked by CityNews how the province would go about hiring so many education professionals, Del Duca called the plan “ambitious,” but added, “We know in Ontario today there were about 80,000 people who are members of the College of Teachers, so they’re certified to teach, yet they’re not teaching in our publicly funded systems.”

“Perhaps some of them have left the profession because they have been mistreated and undervalued consistently by the Ford Conservatives, we’re going to change that,” said Del Duca.

The Liberals, who are looking to improve upon their third-party status in their election, are also promising to hire 1,000 more mental health professionals for students and staff.

“We saw this over the past four years, how so many of our kids were isolated, faced challenges, experienced behavioural shifts,” Del Duca said. “We need more mental health care at our schools.”

The Liberals are also pledging to expand the Student Nutrition Program “to provide a free Ontario-grown breakfast for students in every grade who needs one.”

The party plans to scrap the requirement to obtain two online credits in order to graduate and end EQAO tests and replace them with a new assessment strategy as well.

The election is slated to be held on June 2. You can find a running list of all election promises from each of the four main parties here.

Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report