Over the past five to seven years, New Brunswick has welcomed an unprecedented number of newcomers from around the world. As of 2025, the province reflects a level of cultural and ethnic diversity that I could not have imagined while growing up in the K–12 school system here (Government of New Brunswick, Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour, 2025). This surge in population has brought a much-needed boost—revitalizing our economy, enriching local culture, and enhancing the vibrancy of communities across this small, often overlooked province.
I remember when my child was in elementary school pleading with me to allow her to wear a hijab to school because they were so beautiful and how disappointed she felt when I helped her understand that while it’s wonderful to admire her friends, wearing a hijab without understanding or respecting its significance wouldn’t be appropriate or respectful. Where my childhood friendships were shaped by sameness, my daughter moves with ease among peers of many races, languages, neurotypes, and cultures. To her, this isn’t remarkable—it’s just the way the world is.
While our student population grows increasingly diverse, the educators and leaders guiding our schools remain overwhelmingly White, cisgender, Christian, anglophone, and New Brunswick born, a reality that raises important questions about representation and inclusion. It is time for New Brunswick to reflect: Are we meeting the needs of all students when the faces at the front of the classroom don’t reflect the faces in it? While it is often argued that New Brunswick’s increasing classroom diversity is a recent development—and that time is needed to build a representative educator workforce—the reality is more urgent. Skilled professionals from diverse backgrounds are already here, and their children are already enrolled in our schools. This demands immediate policy action to accelerate the recruitment, credentialing, and retention of educators who reflect the lived experiences of the students they serve. New Brunswick is not unique in experiencing a teacher shortage; this trend mirrors a broader national and global challenge affecting many regions across the Western world. (Previl, 2023). Currently, the NB anglophone and francophone education systems employ 2689 of uncertified educators. (B. Morrison, personal communication, June 4, 2025) Despite having minimal or no pedagogical training, in alignment with NB certification, these individuals have been entrusted with the responsibility of educating New Brunswick’s most valuable resource—it’s children—for an increasingly complex future. All the while we have seasoned educators from Ukraine, Ivory Coast, India, Syria, China and more who NB has no pathway of upskilling to reach the NB certification requirements and employ in our schools.
Firstly, the certification process presents logistical and structural barriers, some of which may reflect underlying systemic inequities that need to be critically examined. The certification body NB uses to qualify professionals – World Education Services (WES) does not appear to “qualify” any educator who has not obtained an education degree from one of the deemed Western post-secondary institutions (World Education Services, 2019). This is the first and most significant barrier for an internationally trained educator (ITE) trying to obtain work in NB.
Secondly, unlike other provinces NB has no bridging program for ITEs to “upskill” their credentials to become qualified for certification in the NB education system. The current pathway requires individuals to complete both a bachelor’s degree and a Bachelor of Education degree—a full-time commitment of five to six years. This is an impractical expectation for most newcomers, especially those living outside university towns or already supporting families.
Thirdly, even when an ITE meets the NB certification requirements the barriers they face are astounding. I recall interviewing an individual from Nigeria with a human resource officer (HRO) and questioning if the candidate was a good fit for the position, the HRO responded “Why, because of his English?” To clarify, English is the official language of Nigeria and widely used in education and government. In what ways might the lack of professional learning and foundational understanding among human resource personnel be contributing to systemic barriers for internationally trained educators—and what will it take to begin closing that gap?
In the end, if an ITE manages to endure and overcome the numerous barriers—barriers shaped by Western-centric systems and maintained by those who benefit from their exclusivity—they may be “rewarded” with a job. They may have a classroom, a school community, and an opportunity to do the work they love. And yet, they often find themselves alone—professionally and culturally isolated within the very system they worked so hard to enter.
They are the only individual of color.
They are the only hijab wearing educator.
They are the only foreign accent on the staff.
What would you do? New country, new culture, new language – Snow, I mean, my god so much SNOW! The NB weather is so daunting, snowfall amounts over 20 cm at one time – that alone would instill terror in the heart of even the most stoic of newcomers. How would you find your community within the school? How will you learn this new education system when you are not provided direct support? How will you return each day, when students use derogative, Islamophobic or racist language directed at you, when parents voice their concern that they do not want their child in THAT classroom stating concerns over your language skills? Who will you turn to for support when no one has shared a pathway for support with you. Answers are not always readily available for these complex issues.
Data shares that having a diversified teaching and leadership staff leads to numerous positive student results from academic achievement to a sense of belonging. “One of the most effective levers to better support students of color is to provide opportunities to learn from a teacher from the same racial or ethnic group…teachers of color are described as uniquely positioned to understand and address the social, political, and economic inequalities that students of color face” (Blazar 2021. p. 1).
When the consistent cry is the urgent need to recruit more educators, the implication is that somewhere, someone has an overabundance of unemployed educators and they don’t know what to do with them. This is simply not the case. As previously stated, NB is not alone in this struggle.
It is time for New Brunswick to stop framing the issue as a teacher shortage when, in reality, it reflects a reluctance to hire beyond a narrow profile—predominantly White, locally trained educators. Meanwhile, ITEs with permanent residency and the qualifications to teach in their areas of expertise remain underemployed or excluded altogether. The problem isn’t a lack of talent—it’s a lack of will to change.
The educators New Brunswick’s school system desperately needs are already here, living and working in this beautiful gem of a province. Most of these individuals aren’t concerned about whether they are placed in Moncton or Lamèque. What they care about is the opportunity to build a new life for their families—families they brought halfway across the world in search of safety and a brighter future. As they seek a fresh start, New Brunswick has a unique opportunity—and responsibility—to welcome their expertise into classrooms where they can educate, mentor, and inspire the next generation of leaders.
Don’t believe me, just ask the Tim Hortons worker who just passed you your double, double.
References
Blazar, D. (2021). Teachers of color, culturally responsive teaching, and student outcomes: Experimental evidence from the random assignment of teachers to classes. EdWorkingPaper No. 21-501. Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University.
Government of Alberta, Labour and Immigration. (n.d.). Immigrant Bridging Program: Program Guidelines. https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/e8285ab5-563d-4873-b74e-416b08cc4fe0/resource/46aa9b45-aa2b-4b8b-adf2-bb2879c587f4/download/lbr-immigrant-bridging-program-guidelines.pdf
Government of New Brunswick, Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour. (2025, February). New Brunswick Population Report. https://www.nbjobs.ca/sites/default/files/2025-03/2025-02-19-LMI-Population-Report-EN.pdf
House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. (2023). Differential treatment in recruitment and acceptance rates of foreign students in Quebec and in the rest of Canada (Report No. 8, 44th Parliament, 1st Session, p. 30). https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/CIMM/report-8/page-30
Previl, S. (2023, September 5). Canada’s teachers say ongoing shortage creating ‘crisis’: What’s behind it? Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/9940451/canada-teacher-shortage/
Sweet, J. (2024, January 24). Retirements, population rise create looming teacher shortage in New Brunswick: study. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/province-teacher-shortage-unb-1.7092505
World Education Services. (2019). Who is succeeding in the Canadian labour market? Predictors of career success for skilled immigrants (Executive Summary).
By: Amber Bishop, Doctoral Candidate, Western University
