To meet the high demand for jobs, Vancouver Island University is doubling its capacity for the Early Child Education and Care program for this fall.
Sheila Grieve, VIU ECE Chair said the province has been increasing the number of childcare spaces and is encouraging people to become qualified and licensed ECE workers.
“In order to increase the number of child care spaces available you need to have more ECE’s, so they’ve also put money into the educational aspect so some funding goes to universities so that we can offer more programs, but students are also able to apply to ECE BC and they can get up to 4,000 dollars per term.”
Grieve says it’s a two year diploma program and ECE workers make about 18 dollars an hour, or 38,000 dollars a year.
She says there are wait lists for some ECE programs in the province and VIU is no exception, however most students applying at VIU do get in.
