How to Immigrate to Canada as an Early Childhood Educator

Are you an early childhood educator looking for an opportunity abroad? Canada is the place for you with all of its emerging opportunities in early childhood education! Teaching is an in-demand occupation, and the Canadian government considers early childhood education in Canada extremely important in ensuring a safe and secure future for children and families residing there.

This is good news for skilled workers trying to find out how to immigrate to Canada as Early Childhood Educators, considering that Canada’s teachers are among the world’s top-paid educators. The salary of early childhood teachers in Canada is commensurate.

If you are interested in moving to Canada as an Early Childhood Educator, learn how you can with this simple and easy-to-follow instructive breakdown about the process of Early Childhood Education immigration to Canada.

How to immigrate to Canada as an ECE

How to immigrate to canada as an ECE

Applying to immigrate to Canada as an Early Childhood Educator is straightforward to follow. It involves mainly four steps which include:

Step 1: Check Your Eligibility

The first step in applying for a Canadian immigration program requires checking whether you are eligible. This requires you to answer several questions posed by Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), which revolve around:

  • Your nationality
  • Your age
  • Your language ability
  • Your family members
  • Your education
  • Your work experience
  • Your income and access to settlement funds
  • Employment offer information

Step 2: Find an ECE job in Canada

Once you have determined that you're eligible to apply, you must find an Early Childhood education job. Is early childhood education in demand in Canada? This is one of the questions you may have to answer during the process of finding an ECE job in Canada which primarily involves:

  • Find your NOC code
  • Research/search for open job posts
  • Draft and Submit Your Canadian CV/Resume
  • Receive an employment offer letter

Find Your NOC Code

The National Occupational Classification (NOC) is Canada’s standardized system that assigns four-digit codes and job descriptions to existing occupations in Canada’s labor market.

The IRCC uses the NOC as an index to assess an immigration candidate’s work experience. NOC codes simplify the process of finding accredited, skilled, and qualified foreign workers to fill in Canada’s job posts.

Your NOC code must be included as part of your work experience when you apply for a job and your work permit application. The NOC code for Early childhood educators is 42202.

The existence of immigration streams targeted to occupations with specific NOC codes makes finding your NOC code very important. 

Research/search for Open Job Posts

After finding your NOC code, you can be searching for job posts in Canada. Canada’s labor market is large and robust enough to absorb almost all eligible applicants.

The most recent data from Trading Economics indicates that there are 855,890 job vacancies in Canada. The surest way to narrow this down when searching for job posts for a specific occupation is to consult provincial in-demand occupations lists, professional associations, and Canadian online job boards.

In-demand Occupations

Fortunately for foreign ECEs, the question of whether or not Early Childhood Educators are in demand in Canada is comprehensively answered. Each province has an in-demand occupation list based on vacancies that are unfulfilled by local labor. By obtaining a Labor Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), Canadian employers become empowered to employ foreign-eligible workers.

With the assistance of provincial governments an in-demand occupations list is created and updated periodically following the labor market of domestic/provincial employers. According to Canada’s Job Bank, Early Childhood Educators (ECE) are most in demand in the following three Canadian provinces:

In particular, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island possess the highest chances of obtaining employment as an ECE in Canada.

Professional Associations

Professional associations, as part of their duties to help their members, usually have information regarding the state of the labor market for their profession/occupation and which locations they have the highest chances of obtaining employment. Most of these associations are created provincially, some of which include:

Canadian Online Job boards

As ECE to Canada immigration continues to gain more applicants, Canadian job boards will further account for this increase by posting more ECE job listings on the site. Canadian online job boards have some of the most up-to-date information on open job posts for each occupation. The online job boards have a search function that you can use to search for vacancies for Early Childhood Educators. The most commonly used and dependable Canadian online job boards include:

Draft and Submit Your Canadian CV/Resume

To teach an early childhood education course in Canada requires a substantial amount of experience and qualifications. Canadian Curriculum Vitae (CV) and resumes are markedly different from other nations. Therefore you must draft your CV and resume according to Canadian specifications. Remember that your CV includes all your educational and professional qualifications, which makes it a longer document than the occupational experience-focused and concise resume.

To know more about how to draft the perfect CV or resume, we recommend you consult this helpful guide.

Receive an Employment Offer from a Canadian Employer

Should you be fortunate to receive an offer of employment, you must keep the official letter that contains all the official details of the job offer. This will serve you well when you need to present supporting documentation to border officials who want to know your reasons or the purpose of your stay in Canada.

Step 3: Find the Immigration Program Most Suitable for You

After finding a suitable job, your next step involves looking for Canadian immigration visa programs that ECEs can apply for. For early childhood educators, the permanent residency pathways that they can use include:

Express Entry

If you’re immigrating to Canada as quickly as possible, the Express Entry system is your best option. The Express Entry Programs, such as the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) and Canadian Experience Class (CEC), can be used to apply to immigrate to Canada. In particular, the FSWP is the most applicable program to use.

This is because under the new and prevailing Teaching, Education, Experience and Responsibilities (TEER) system which was introduced in 2021, ECEs are categorized under TEER 1 and 2, described as occupations requiring a post-secondary education qualification. The Express Entry system is the most commonly used Early Childhood Educator PR pathway.

Provincial Nominee Programs

PNPs are another often used Early Childhood Educator PR pathway. As mentioned, each province has a list of in-demand occupations. To meet the demand to move to those provinces, each province has a list of Provincial Nominee programs, pilots, and streams that ECEs can use to immigrate to the province.

You can learn about the eligibility requirements and application process for the PNPs where ECEs are most in-demand below:

Immigration Pilots

Among Immigration pilots, the most suitable programs that ECEs can use to immigrate to Canada are the:

Rural Canadian provinces have some of the highest educational needs due to most professional educators moving to Canada’s urban centers.

Finding it difficult to get local workers to replace this net migration of educators away from rural areas, a lot of rural educational institutions have elected to join immigration pilots such as the RNIP and AIP as a means of sourcing and retaining foreign educators through applying for early childhood immigration to Canada.

Alternatively, certain subcategories of ECEs such as daycare helper, daycare supervisor, and daycare worker can use the Care Provider Pilot to apply to move to immigrate to Canada. Learn more about how to apply for Canada’s immigration pilots.

Work Permits

If you don’t qualify for a PR program or want to move to Canada as an ECE temporarily, you can apply for a work permit. Foreign ECEs can use the following work permits:

Learn more about how to apply for a Canada work permit.

Step 4: Start Your Application Process

Gather all the required documentation to support your application and certify them. This includes:

  • A minimum of two years of paid work experience as an ECE
  • A Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) score of 7 for all language competencies (listening, speaking, reading, and writing)
  • A valid offer of employment for one year from a Canadian employer
  • A high school diploma and certified ECE qualification, and an Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) obtained from an organization like the World Education Services (WES)
  • A police clearance document indicating a clear criminal record
  • A bank statement or equivalent document showing proof you can support yourself and your family in Canada
  • A medical examination report proving that you’re in good health

What are the Benefits of Being an Early Childhood Educator in Canada?

What are the benefits of ECE in Canada

Early Childhood Education in Canada is a valuable sector of educational development seen as crucial in paving the way to a successful learning experience for all students. As a consequence, to attract and retain ECEs, Canadian employers have instituted a variety of benefits which include:

Competitive Salary/Wage

ECEs are some of the highest-paid skilled workers in their category. Your experience, skills, and location determine your pay. However, according to to Jobbank, the average base salary for an ECE in Canada is 39,390 CAD.

Housing Benefits

ECEs, especially permanent resident ECEs are entitled to the same subsidized housing benefits as every other working professional in Canada. This includes a housing allowance that makes finding and paying for affordable housing in Canada easier.

Generous Leave Benefits

ECEs are entitled to generous annual paid and sick leave benefits which are commensurate with the benefits that other Educators in Canada receive.

Other Employment Benefits

Other well-known and common employment benefits for ECEs include:

  • Dental insurance
  • Life insurance
  • Maternity Leave
  • Compassionate leave
  • Cumulative sick leave
  • Supplementary medical insurance
  • Sabbatical and study leave
  • Long-term disability insurance
  • Retirement gratuities

If the above-mentioned benefits and advantages are to your liking and spark an interest in you to move to Canada, seize the opportunity to apply to immigrate by consulting one of our certified Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultants (RCICs).

FAQs

FAQs

How Can I Have My Qualifications Accredited for Canada?

The process of accrediting your foreign educational qualifications can be done using the World Education Services (WES) which will supply you with an Educational Credential Assessment (ECA). An ECA certifies that your foreign qualifications are equivalent to one obtained from a Canadian educational institution.

Do I Need to Have a Teaching Certificate to Immigrate to Canada as an Early Childhood Educator?

Since ECEs provide an educational service, they are regulated by a professional body that requires them to be licensed by a provincial or territorial government. To do so, you will need a provincial teaching certificate.