The Early Childhood Education (ECE) Tropicana Black Fast-Track program is a fully funded cohort of the Centennial College ECE diploma open to Black learners from the Greater Toronto Area.  It is run in partnership by Centennial College and Tropicana Community Services.

Program details

As a student in the Early Childhood Education program, you’ll learn to provide high standards of care to children and their families. This highly regarded program will teach you to take responsibility for observing the needs of individuals and groups of children, and to create well-planned, stimulating and responsive programs. You’ll come to understand the needs of infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and school-aged children. Rich classroom experiences will offer you a range of opportunities to understand the content, as professors employ a variety of strategies that will allow you to practise and apply what you learn. Supporting this program are Centennial College’s two state-of-the-art early childhood education centres. Used as labs, these centres, located in East York and at Progress Campus, will allow you to observe and/or practise in a high-quality childcare setting.

School: School of Community and Health Studies
Credential: Centennial College Diploma
Program Length: 4 semesters
Delivery: In-person/Full-time

Career opportunities for ECE graduates

As a graduate from the Early Childhood Education program, you will be qualified to work:

• With children and families in childcare centres.
• In full-day learning classrooms within the Board of Education.
• With children and families in drop-in centres, shelters and community service programs.
• Opening your home childcare in accordance with legislative requirements.

What will I learn in the ECE program?

This program is committed to responding to and reflecting current trends and directions in the field and profession. Upon graduation, you will:

• Know how to design a curriculum for child-centred, play-based learning.
• Know how to support children’s learning and development by responding to their unique needs and interests.
• Know how to build caring relationships with children, families, and communities.
• Know how to create safe, healthy and inclusive early learning environments.
• Complete your fully funded ECE diploma in two years.
• Experience practical experiential learning through three field placements in the community, working directly with infants or toddlers, pre-school and school-aged children.
• Qualified and experienced supervisors will support you during the field placement to ensure your learning is optimized.
• Have opportunities to be available to work in full-day kindergarten environments during the third or fourth semesters.
• Have a block placement to maximize your ability to solidify skills in semesters three and four.
• Highly skilled faculty create stimulating learning opportunities in the classroom, addressing a range of learning styles.

Requirements

To apply, you must be 19 years or older by September 1, of the current year, and you will require the following to be included in your application:

• Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD), or equivalent, or mature student status (19 years or older)
• Grade 12 English (C or U), or equivalent (minimum grade required), or take a Centennial English Admission Test
  English language proficiency 

ECE field placement requirements

After admission, before beginning each field placement, students are required to:

• Obtain a clear police background check with vulnerable sector screening
• Provide valid first aid and CPR certificates before the beginning of the second semester
• Provide a clear medical report, including a TB test

What will I do with an ECE diploma?

Upon completing this program, you will be ready to apply for job opportunities in childcare centres, school boards, and community programs—or to open a regulated home childcare centre. Your role will involve creating learning environments that foster, develop, and sustain caring, responsive relationships in collaboration with children, families, and communities that appreciate and respect social, cultural, and linguistic diversity, including Indigenous worldviews and Francophone identity. You will also build on a variety of skills and capabilities:

• Co-create, facilitate and reflect upon inquiry and play-based early years and childcare programs and pedagogical approaches to support children’s learning, holistic development and well-being following children’s capabilities, interests, ideas and experiences.
• Co-design and maintain inclusive early learning environments to value and support equitable, accessible and meaningful learning opportunities for all children, their families and communities in a range of early years and child care settings.
• Collaborate with children, families, colleagues, agencies, and community partners to create, maintain, evaluate and promote safe and healthy early learning environments to support independence, reasonable risk-taking and healthy development and well-being.
• Use observation strategies to identify children’s strengths and challenges and to ascertain when children and families might benefit from additional support or community resources.
• Use professional communication in interactions with children, families, colleagues, employers, regulatory bodies, government authorities and children’s service agencies to meet legal and ethical standards of the early years sector.
• Act in accordance with relevant legislation, regulations, the College of Early Childhood Educators’ Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice, agency policies, procedures and principles of evidence-informed practice and reflect upon their impact on one’s role in early years and child care settings.
• Identify, report and document when a child is in a situation of perceived risk of, or actual, neglect or abuse, in accordance with legislation, the College of Early Childhood Educators’ Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice, policies and procedures.
• Create and engage in partnerships with families, communities, colleagues, interdisciplinary professionals, authorities and child service agencies to advocate for quality early years and childcare programs and services.
• Engage in reflective practice and continuous professional learning in accordance with principles of lifelong learning, evidence-informed practices in the early years sector and requirements of the College of Early Childhood Educators.
• Engage with Indigenous children, families, and communities to co-create, implement and evaluate Indigenous early years, childcare, child and family programs, and environments that are culturally sensitive and culturally relevant to the communities they serve.
• Create innovative and responsive caregiving environments that acknowledge the contextual traditions of the child, the family, and the community.

Hear from a past student

Watch this short video, in which Mark Rocamora, a Registered Early Childhood Educator at Centennial College and a Graduate of the ECE program, shares his experience.

Watch Video