Six years after e-learning became a mandatory requirement to get an Ontario high school diploma, students don’t appear to be taking online school to diversify their course selection as the province had intended, according to a CBC News analysis of provincial enrolment data.
When Ontario announced the requirement in 2019, it touted the change as an “opportunity” for students to take electives not offered at their school and gain digital literacy skills.
Now, an analysis of provincial e-learning data by CBC News has found that the most popular courses taken online were those required to graduate or electives typically used for university applications.
The numbers speak to concerns that some students, teachers and education experts have raised about the e-learning system, namely that it could be used to game the system for better marks, at a time when students need higher grades than ever before to get into university.
“The pitch around online education from its inception has been to respond to insufficient in-person offerings,” said Beyhan Farhadi, an assistant professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), who researches e-learning and was a high school teacher for 15 years.
“If that were the case, we would have [a] greater number of college-level courses because those tend to be under enrolled [in] and we would have a greater degree of courses for students who are more on the margins.”
Out of the hundreds of courses offered online for the 2024-25 school year, the most popular one was civics and citizenship, a mandatory course that saw nearly 23,000 students enrolled.
Other popular courses included English, math, and science classes like biology and chemistry, where enrolment was in the thousands.
Inshal Syed, a Grade 12 student at Orchard Park Secondary School, chose to opt out of e-learning, an option that the province allows as long as a parent signs off on it. Students who are 18 years old or have withdrawn from parental consent can opt out on their own.
Syed said many of his friends chose to take online courses for “the sole purpose of getting a high mark.”
“A lot of kids know that the online version is a lot easier than in person,” Syed said.
Monika Ferenczy, a senior education consultant and owner of education consulting firm Horizon Education Consulting, said “the premise that e-learning will boost your marks is pretty fair.”
“It is a viable option to increase your marks because it doesn’t have the same organic components to learning and teaching as a traditional classroom does.”
Ferenczy said e-learning lends itself better to more “theoretical, humanities types of courses and mathematics” and students who are self-guided learners, but the learning experience for courses like chemistry and biology will be much different than in person.
“You can’t do a lab online. They do have them online, but it’s not the same as actually walking into a laboratory and doing your chem or your physics or your biology lab work. And in university, you’re going to be in a lab,” she said.
“Ultimately that skill is not learned. And so they are entering those sciences in the post-secondary with a deficit.”
Nearly 4,000 students enrolled in Grade 12 biology in the 2024-25 school year, enrolment data shows. Biology and chemistry courses were among the most popular electives to take, according to the data.
In 2019, the province made it a requirement for students to take two e-learning courses to graduate starting in the 2020-21 school year, according to a ministry news release.
The enrolment data shows that since 2014, enrolment in online classes has steadily increased, especially after it was mandated.
But that doesn’t mean that e-learning is necessarily negative, according to Ferenczy.
“I have clients and students who never went back to in-person learning because they found their groove with online learning,” she said, noting it gives students freedom and flexibility that in-person learning does not.
“I think there can be just as much rigour in an e-learning course as in an in-person course, but it all depends on how the course is set up,” she said.
Ferenczy students taking an e-learning course to get a higher mark can be similar to why some students decide to take summer school when they don’t get a teacher they like for a class.
Why is it getting harder for Ontario high schoolers to get into university?
Amontaye Mullings, a Grade 12 student at Oasis Alternative Secondary School, said e-learning classes can give students “realistic” chances of achieving the grades required to get into post-secondary studies.
He said he’s heard of students re-taking in-person classes online because they want to get better marks. This can, however, place more stress on them as they manage that class on top of a full timetable, he said.
Mullings opted out of e-learning but said he’s heard from peers that the modules are “quite strict.”
“I think in a dream fantasy world … it would be as simple as, ‘OK, I’m going to do e-learning and I’m going to ChatGPT all the answers.’ That is by no means what I’m hearing.”
CBC News reached out to the Ministry of Education multiple times for comment about e-learning and its possible impact on grades, but did not receive a response.
When asked about e-learning and grade inflation at a scrum outside of Queen’s Park Monday, Education Minister Paul Calandra said he’s heard from educators and post-secondary institutions about grade inflation “across the system.”
“We are going to take a look at it,” he said.
But Farhadi said e-learning reflects a systemic problem too: the growing demand for students to get post-secondary degrees while spots for those programs get more competitive due to demand.
“I can understand the perspective of a student who’s playing the game because what is presented to them is a game.”
