Education facts
Find data about school boards, schools, student enrolment, school educators and funding of elementary and secondary schools. Data is for the 2023–2024 school year, as of September 20, 2024.
Overview
2.08 million
students
$30.5 billion
education funding
145,157
educators
4,848
schools
Read our parent guide to learn more about our public school system.
School boards and school authorities
School boards manage publicly funded schools. In a few cases, school authorities manage schools.
School boards
A school board oversees all the schools within its jurisdiction.
Ontario has 72 district school boards, organized into 4 school systems:
- English Public
- English Catholic
- French Public
- French Catholic
Number of school boards in each system
31
English public school boards
29
English Catholic school boards
4
French public school boards
8
French Catholic school boards
School authorities
School authorities are alternatives to district school boards.
There are 10 school authorities:
- 6 serve students in school authorities in children’s treatment centres
- 4 serve students who live in remote areas of Ontario or in a minority separate school system
Find your local school authority.
Provincial and demonstration schools
There are provincial schools and demonstration schools for students who:
- are deaf or hard of hearing
- are blind or have low vision
- are deafblind
- have severe learning disabilities
Schools
There were 4,848 publicly funded schools for students from kindergarten to Grade 12 in the 2023–2024 school year.
Number of elementary and secondary schools
3,965
elementary schools serving
1,419,642 students
883
secondary schools serving
660,856 students
Note: Remote learning schools are not included in these school counts.
Elementary schools teach kindergarten to Grade 8. A school may have:
- kindergarten to Grade 5 or 6
- Grade 6 to 8 or Grade 7 and 8 (sometimes called “middle school”)
- kindergarten to Grade 8
Secondary schools teach Grades 9 to 12.
Education funding
$28.2 billion
for operating costs
$2.3 billion
for capital projects
We fund school boards that then fund their schools and school systems for:
- day-to-day operations including:
- staffing
- classroom supplies
- programs and services
- transportation
- school operations (for example, utility costs)
- construction and improvement of school buildings
Learn more about education funding and how it supports student achievement and well-being.
Teachers, administrators and early childhood educators
Here are the full time equivalent (FTE) school staff totals for the 2023–2024 school year.
127,899
teacher FTEs
85,105 elementary
41,793 secondary
7,666
principal and vice principal FTEs
5,467 elementary
2,019 secondary
9,592
early childhood educator FTEs
There were:
- 7,666.46 FTE administrators (principals and vice-principals), consisting of 5,647.20 elementary and 2,019.26 secondary administrators
- 9,591.53 FTE early childhood educators (ECEs), including long-term occasional ECEs
Student enrolment
Student enrolment was 2,080,498 as of the 2023–2024 school year.
Elementary enrolment
The following table shows elementary student enrolment by grade and language.
| Grade | English Language | French Language | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Junior Kindergarten | 115,738 | 7,722 | 123,460 |
| Kindergarten | 124,831 | 8,236 | 133,067 |
| Grade 1 | 130,438 | 8,474 | 138,912 |
| Grade 2 | 133,546 | 8,662 | 142,208 |
| Grade 3 | 134,970 | 8,728 | 143,698 |
| Grade 4 | 136,980 | 8,828 | 145,808 |
| Grade 5 | 137,442 | 8,591 | 146,033 |
| Grade 6 | 140,712 | 8,531 | 149,243 |
| Grade 7 | 139,327 | 8,039 | 147,366 |
| Grade 8 | 141,625 | 8,222 | 149,847 |
| Total | 1,335,609 | 84,033 | 1,419,642 |
Secondary enrolment
The following table shows secondary student enrolment by grade and language.
| Grade | English Language | French Language | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 9 | 149,024 | 7,207 | 156,231 |
| Grade 10 | 150,791 | 7,103 | 157,894 |
| Grade 11 | 150,902 | 6,811 | 157,713 |
| Grade 12 | 181,646 | 7,372 | 189,018 |
| Total | 632,363 | 28,493 | 660,856 |
This data is based on student headcount and is reported to us by schools through the Ontario School Information System. It includes public schools, Catholic schools and adult schools within school boards and school authorities. It excludes:
- private schools
- publicly funded provincial schools
- school authorities in children's treatment centres
- Education and Community Partnership Program facilities
- summer, night and adult continuing education schools
Explore more data
Download data from 2017–2018 and onwards from the Open Data Catalogue.