Reconsidering the mandatory in mandatory online learning

In December of 2019, the Ontario government announced that their secondary school students in Ontario would be required to take two online courses to graduate and that students in 2023-2024 cohort would be the first cohort required to complete the online courses. This paper explores the research surrounding current offerings of online education in Canada and the available research on K-12 online learning, and then analyzes the policy of mandatory online courses through a critical policy analysis lens. Findings are reported along with recommendations for future considerations of mandatory online learning in the K-12 sector.