Ontario Academic Credit
Encyclopedia
The Ontario Academic Credit or OAC ( or ) was part of the curriculum(s) codified by the Ontario Ministry of Education in Ontario Schools: Intermediate and Senior (OS:IS) and its revisions. In common parlance, the term is used to describe the fifth high school year (originally known as Grade 13) that used to exist in the province of Ontario
, Canada
. It can also refer to the course
s offered at the OAC level, or the high school credit
s that are associated with these courses. Finally, it can refer, informally, to students who were in their OAC year (OACs). Ontario Academic Credits and its related curriculum have been phased out and were last offered for the 2006-2007 school year.
s in Ontario, the Secondary School Graduation Diploma (SSGD) which was awarded after Grade 12 and the Secondary School Honours Graduation Diploma (SSHGD) awarded after Grade 13. 1988 was the final year the SSHGD was awarded thereby ending Grade 13 in its original meaning.
The "Grade 13 diploma" was recognized in many jurisdictions as being the equivalent of first-year university and having it would enable some students to apply directly for entry into second-year at universities outside of Ontario. This practice ended with the replacement of the SSHGD with the Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) under OS:IS.
In part due to the phenomenon of "grade inflation
" common to many countries including Canada, the percentage of academic-stream "Ontario Scholar
s" (those graduating with averages of 80% or over) has risen over the years. This raises the question as to whether the marks earned in an OAC subject were worth the same as marks earned in the older Grade 13 subject.
OS:IS more formally allowed for the completion of schooling after only 12 grades, where previously, this had been an exceptional circumstance. Under OS:IS, OAC year was the final year of high school
in Ontario. Students were not required to complete that year in order to receive the OSSD; many students graduated after Grade 12. However, Canadian universities (and indeed, most universities abroad) required OAC for admission.
Ontario universities looked at a prospective matriculant's "top-six" (the six OAC courses taken with the highest grades) and averaged them. If one's "top-six" average was above a university's "cut-off" (the lowest average they would be willing to accept for that year), one would be admitted. Most university programs had certain course requirements. All programs required OAC English in addition to other specific program area OAC requirements such as Algebra, Geometry, or Calculus for Sciences, or History, Geography or Art related OAC's for Social Science programs.
Students with an average of 80% or greater over 6 OAC courses were named Ontario Scholars. Currently, the same applies for people getting an average over 80% in 6 grade 12 credits.
. The motivation for phasing out OAC was largely thought of as a cost-saving measure by the Progressive Conservatives, and to bring Ontario in line with the rest of the provinces. The reforms cumulated into a new, standardized curriculum documented in Ontario Secondary Schools, Grades 9 to 12: Program and Diploma Requirements (OSS). The OAC year was replaced with an extra ten days of schooling in each lower grade, and the material was integrated into the earlier years of education.
spaces in universities or employment in the job market.
Consequences outside of the double cohort years have been generally mixed. Since the elimination of OAC, some have noted that a greater proportion of students have entered post-secondary education since the elimination of OAC. However, in a paper published by Harry Krashinsky of the University of Toronto
, Krashinsky had found that the elimination of OAC had a large and negative impact on academic performance in university.
Patrick Brady and Philip Allingham of Lakehead University
, has argued that the provincial government's attempt to bring Ontario in line with the rest of the continent's 12 grades system has only been partially successful. Both have noted that the fifth year in secondary schools is still a norm in Ontario, with students in Ontario still opting to take a fifth year in secondary school, colloquially known as the victory lap
. In the 2007-2008 year, students over the age of 19 made up 3.7 percent of all secondary day school enrolment in Ontario.
(it is 19 in Ontario). This has forced the universities to eliminate or police many frosh-week events and traditions that allegedly encouraged drinking and has banned the consumption of alcohol at most frosh-week events. Queen's University's Student Orientation Activities Review Board (SOARB) noted in 2005 that "first-year students seemed to show more desire to drink than those of the past few years. Student drinking, prior to attendance, compromised events at which no alcohol was available... The Board wonders if there is merit to making the evening hours busier to avoid allowing time to “pre-drink” before events."
With a significant minority of students below the legal drinking age, 18-year-olds are legally excluded from campus events and social activities. The temporal nature of this exclusion and the stress associated with establishing a social network in an unfamiliar environment creates intense pressure for underage students to either find ways to subvert the Ontario drinking laws (by purchasing fake IDs, using real IDs of other people, or drinking in private residences with ill-gotten alcohol) or sacrifice relationships with those of legal drinking age.
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. It can also refer to the course
Course (education)
The very broad dictionary meaning of the word course is the act or action of moving in a path from point to point . There are multiple meanings for this word, some of which include: general line of orientation, a mode of action, part of a meal, a mode of action, and many more. This article focuses...
s offered at the OAC level, or the high school credit
Credit (education)
A course credit is a unit that gives weighting to the value, level or time requirements of an academic course taken at a school or other educational institution.- United States :...
s that are associated with these courses. Finally, it can refer, informally, to students who were in their OAC year (OACs). Ontario Academic Credits and its related curriculum have been phased out and were last offered for the 2006-2007 school year.
Ontario Academic Credit year
Prior to the introduction of OAC for students entering high school (grade 9) in the 1984-1985 school year, Ontario had 13 grades, with Grade 13 first being established in 1921. There were two high school diplomaDiploma
A diploma is a certificate or deed issued by an educational institution, such as a university, that testifies that the recipient has successfully completed a particular course of study or confers an academic degree. In countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia, the word diploma refers to...
s in Ontario, the Secondary School Graduation Diploma (SSGD) which was awarded after Grade 12 and the Secondary School Honours Graduation Diploma (SSHGD) awarded after Grade 13. 1988 was the final year the SSHGD was awarded thereby ending Grade 13 in its original meaning.
The "Grade 13 diploma" was recognized in many jurisdictions as being the equivalent of first-year university and having it would enable some students to apply directly for entry into second-year at universities outside of Ontario. This practice ended with the replacement of the SSHGD with the Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) under OS:IS.
In part due to the phenomenon of "grade inflation
Grade inflation
Grade inflation is the tendency of academic grades for work of comparable quality to increase over time.It is frequently discussed in relation to U.S. education, and to GCSEs and A levels in England and Wales...
" common to many countries including Canada, the percentage of academic-stream "Ontario Scholar
Ontario Scholar
An Ontario Scholar is any high school graduate in the Canadian province of Ontario who attains an average of 80% or higher in their six best grade 12 courses. Prior to the elimination of the Ontario Academic Credit in 2003 the award was limited to OAC courses....
s" (those graduating with averages of 80% or over) has risen over the years. This raises the question as to whether the marks earned in an OAC subject were worth the same as marks earned in the older Grade 13 subject.
OS:IS more formally allowed for the completion of schooling after only 12 grades, where previously, this had been an exceptional circumstance. Under OS:IS, OAC year was the final year of high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
in Ontario. Students were not required to complete that year in order to receive the OSSD; many students graduated after Grade 12. However, Canadian universities (and indeed, most universities abroad) required OAC for admission.
Ontario Academic Credit courses
OAC courses were the highest level courses in Ontario high schools until the formal elimination of the Ontario Academic Credit. To enter university, students were required to complete 30 high school credits (courses can have different credit values, but most courses were worth 1 credit; some courses were compulsory and there were other restrictions), 6 of which had to be at the OAC level. Assuming that one had taken the necessary prerequisite courses, one could complete an OAC course before the OAC year, thus in many schools, it was common for Grade 11 or Grade 12 students to have taken OAC courses. Students who completed these requirements in 4 years of high school were permitted to graduate; this practice was known as fast-tracking. Finishing Grade 12 in four years with 30 credits was simple if the student was college bound. However most students who were interested in studying at the university level, ended up staying for a 5th year to complete OACs due to the heavy workload, lack of OAC prerequisite credits, or for personal reasons.Ontario universities looked at a prospective matriculant's "top-six" (the six OAC courses taken with the highest grades) and averaged them. If one's "top-six" average was above a university's "cut-off" (the lowest average they would be willing to accept for that year), one would be admitted. Most university programs had certain course requirements. All programs required OAC English in addition to other specific program area OAC requirements such as Algebra, Geometry, or Calculus for Sciences, or History, Geography or Art related OAC's for Social Science programs.
Students with an average of 80% or greater over 6 OAC courses were named Ontario Scholars. Currently, the same applies for people getting an average over 80% in 6 grade 12 credits.
Elimination of OAC
The phasing out of the OAC year was apart of a series of recommendations made by the Royal Commission on Learning and was implemented in 1999 by the governing Ontario Progressive Conservative Party under the leadership of Premier Mike HarrisMike Harris
Michael Deane "Mike" Harris was the 22nd Premier of Ontario from June 26, 1995 to April 15, 2002. He is most noted for the "Common Sense Revolution", his Progressive Conservative government's program of deficit reduction in combination with lower taxes and cuts to government...
. The motivation for phasing out OAC was largely thought of as a cost-saving measure by the Progressive Conservatives, and to bring Ontario in line with the rest of the provinces. The reforms cumulated into a new, standardized curriculum documented in Ontario Secondary Schools, Grades 9 to 12: Program and Diploma Requirements (OSS). The OAC year was replaced with an extra ten days of schooling in each lower grade, and the material was integrated into the earlier years of education.
Consequences
The elimination of OAC had led to a spike in more than 100,000 students graduating in 2003, with the last OAC (OS:IS) class and the first Grade 12 (OSS) class graduating in the same year. This had strained many Ontario post-secondary institutions, as the spike in students had led to forced the institutions to either construct, or rent new buildings for student housing. With the rise of students entering the post-secondary education, the provincial government had set aside additional fundings for colleges and universities to build more infrastructures such as residence and classrooms. They also had to provide more resources such as upgrading libraries, adding more study areas, creating new programs and hiring additional professors and teaching assistants. For those who are unable to enter post-secondary institutions, the provincial government allocated more fundings for the apprentice program. The spike in students graduating in 2003 had also led to more competitive admission standards in most Ontario universities. Some students under OS:IS who feared that they might not be able to gain admission to the university of their choice as a result of the double cohort decided to fast-track to graduate before 2003; a variation of this is where some students under OSS decided to take an extra year of high school to graduate in 2004 or delayed application to post-secondary institutions. Double-cohort students who chose the latter options in their turn affected those in the year after them, creating a ripple effect. In June 2007, a cascade double-cohort effect occurred at universities and the job market, as double cohort students who were finishing their undergraduate studies in April competed for graduateGraduate school
A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...
spaces in universities or employment in the job market.
Consequences outside of the double cohort years have been generally mixed. Since the elimination of OAC, some have noted that a greater proportion of students have entered post-secondary education since the elimination of OAC. However, in a paper published by Harry Krashinsky of the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
, Krashinsky had found that the elimination of OAC had a large and negative impact on academic performance in university.
Patrick Brady and Philip Allingham of Lakehead University
Lakehead University
Lakehead University is a public research university in Thunder Bay, and Orillia, Ontario, Canada.Lakehead University, shortened to 'Lakehead U', or 'LU', is non-denominational and provincially supported. It has undergraduate and graduate programs and a medical school.The school has more than 45,000...
, has argued that the provincial government's attempt to bring Ontario in line with the rest of the continent's 12 grades system has only been partially successful. Both have noted that the fifth year in secondary schools is still a norm in Ontario, with students in Ontario still opting to take a fifth year in secondary school, colloquially known as the victory lap
Victory lap (academia)
A victory lap is a term used in American & Canadian academics to describe one or more extra years of study needed beyond the traditional four years of undergraduate studies. These added years are generally the result of switching midstream to a different major or program...
. In the 2007-2008 year, students over the age of 19 made up 3.7 percent of all secondary day school enrolment in Ontario.
Elimination of OAC and drinking age
The elimination of OAC resulted in the majority of incoming first-year students in Ontario universities to drop from 19 years of age to 18 years of age. This created a legal liability to universities as the majority of first-year students were now below the legal drinking ageLegal drinking age
Laws about the legal drinking age cover a wide range of issues and behaviours, addressing when and where alcohol can be consumed. The minimum age alcohol can be legally consumed can be different to the age when it can be purchased. These laws vary among different countries and many laws have...
(it is 19 in Ontario). This has forced the universities to eliminate or police many frosh-week events and traditions that allegedly encouraged drinking and has banned the consumption of alcohol at most frosh-week events. Queen's University's Student Orientation Activities Review Board (SOARB) noted in 2005 that "first-year students seemed to show more desire to drink than those of the past few years. Student drinking, prior to attendance, compromised events at which no alcohol was available... The Board wonders if there is merit to making the evening hours busier to avoid allowing time to “pre-drink” before events."
With a significant minority of students below the legal drinking age, 18-year-olds are legally excluded from campus events and social activities. The temporal nature of this exclusion and the stress associated with establishing a social network in an unfamiliar environment creates intense pressure for underage students to either find ways to subvert the Ontario drinking laws (by purchasing fake IDs, using real IDs of other people, or drinking in private residences with ill-gotten alcohol) or sacrifice relationships with those of legal drinking age.