According to a report from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, over five years, 252 current or past school employees either perpetrated or were accused of committing sexual offences against 548 children.

Another 38 employees, according to the report, were criminally accused between 2017 and 2021 for offences relating to child pornography.

The director of instruction at the centre in Winnipeg, Noni Classen, described the situation as “startling and a little frustrating.”

It is the only publicly accessible, national snapshot of sexual offences in schools, according to Classen. To create the database, the centre looked through disciplinary files, news articles, and criminal case law.

Any person who works in a school setting is included in the study, including teachers, administrators, bus drivers, and cleaning personnel.

The majority of organizations in charge of monitoring the discipline of school staff are not compelled to make the findings of their investigations public because education is a matter of provincial and territorial jurisdiction. Classen said that there is a severe lack of openness and that she believes the report’s statistics are conservative.

When gender was known, the report states that 71% of victims were female and 29% were male. 37% of the offence-causing behaviours involved physical contact.

ECE, which stands for “stop educator-child exploitation”, is composed of people who have experienced sexual assault at the hands of school personnel. The organization is urging the creation of independent national or provincial committees to look into teacher-on-student sexual exploitation.

It also calls for recompense for victims and a national investigation of child abuse by school personnel.