71 Percent of Ontario College Faculty Are Precarious: What That Means for Your Classes
By Muntasir Minhaz • Published Aug 19, 2026 • Canadian Universities & Colleges, Canada Higher Ed News & Policy
Seven in ten faculty members teaching at Ontario's 24 public colleges work without job security, hired part-time or on a sessional contract renewed term by term.
📊 71 percent of Ontario college faculty are precariously employed, per OPSEU/SEFPO, the union representing them.
Over 16,000 part-time and sessional faculty across all 24 Ontario colleges joined OPSEU/SEFPO in April 2025, one of the largest organizing drives in Canadian labour history.
Precarious contracts mean your instructor sometimes is not confirmed for a course until weeks before term starts.
Falling international enrolment and college budget cuts make contract renewal less predictable for 2025-26 and 2026-27.
The number
71 percent of the people teaching at Ontario's 24 public colleges work without job security and with little to no benefits, according to Pearline Lung, chair of the faculty division at OPSEU/SEFPO, the union representing Ontario college employees. She gave that figure on April 11, 2025, the same day the union announced that more than 16,000 part-time and sessional faculty across all 24 colleges had voted to unionize, one of the largest single organizing drives in Canadian labour history. OPSEU/SEFPO
What "precarious" means in practice
Part-time and sessional college instructors get hired term by term, not year to year. A college simply lets a contract lapse at the end of any semester, without the formal layoff process a full-time position triggers, and pay typically comes with no extended health benefits, no pension contribution and no guaranteed course load from one term to the next. Many piece together a full teaching schedule across more than one college.
Why this is happening now
Ontario colleges built years of program planning around international tuition revenue, and that revenue collapsed fast. Statistics Canada recorded a 36 percent drop in Ontario college international enrolment for 2025-26 alone, a 42 percent fall since 2023-24. Groups representing Ontario colleges already flagged cuts to student programs and services as budgets shrink. A workforce that is 71 percent contract-based gives colleges room to cut course sections without a formal layoff process, part of why the union targeted this group for organizing. Global News, citing Statistics Canada
What it means for your classes
Your instructor for a given section sometimes is not confirmed until close to the start of term, since contracts get issued late.
A section gets cancelled or merged with little notice when enrolment or budget numbers shift, since a non-renewed contract leaves no position behind to protect.
Office hours and outside-class availability shrink when your instructor teaches at more than one institution to cover a full course load.
Course continuity between terms is not guaranteed. The instructor who taught your first course in a sequence is not necessarily teaching the second one.
How to protect your schedule
Register early and keep a backup course in mind for any section taught by contract faculty, since these sections shift most often. If a course you need gets cancelled close to term start, contact your program coordinator immediately rather than your instructor, since staffing decisions happen above the classroom level. Follow your college's academic council or student union updates on program cuts, since those bodies typically know about section reductions before the public course calendar reflects them.