English as a Second Language Statistics

• Since 1999 and 2000, there has been a 60% increase in the percentage of schools that have ESL students. However, there has not been any corresponding increase in ESL teachers.

• In Ontario’s English-language schools, the average proportion of English Language Learners per school is 9% in elementary schools and 24% in secondary schools. In some schools, as many as 94% of the students are English Language Learners.

• More than half of Ontario’s English-language elementary schools (60%) and secondary schools (54%) have ELL students; in the Greater Toronto Area, the figure increases to 85% in elementary schools.

• 21% of elementary and 5% of secondary schools with 10 or more ELL students do not have a designated ESL/ELD teacher. 

• In the GTA, 10% of schools with 10 or more ELL students have no ESL/ELD teacher, compared to 53% in Central Ontario. 

Statistics from (People for Education's Annual Report on Ontario's Publicly Funded Schools, 2012)