High School Diploma & Credits

Families who desire to home educate their children do not have to give up on home education once their child reaches grade 10. Home education students who want to earn credits from the Alberta Education system have several choices, described below:

Diploma

In Alberta, home education is a recognized and legitimate method for completing a high school program. Students can study course outlines on their own, write challenge exams, earn credits through portfolio assessments, and be granted high school credits for their home education efforts. These credits are the same as if they were earned in a school and allow home education students the opportunity to earn a full high school Alberta diploma.

Home-based learners can earn the diploma-required 100 course credits at home through any one or more of the following options:

  1. “Course Challenges” as provided for and described in the Guide to Education publication from Alberta Education
    – Challenge exams for the core subjects (math, science, English, and social studies)
    – Portfolio assessments for physical education and options/elective courses
  2. The $650.00 additional grant to high school Home Education (Code 600) students who want to enrol into one online learning course from a funded and accredited school within Alberta. Contact brett@thee.ca for more information.

Home education students who choose to earn an Alberta Diploma must meet the diploma requirements as established by Alberta Education, and these requirements include earning 100 specified credits during grades 10-12. Click here to view the requirements for the Alberta Education diploma.

The ALIS website enables you to search a database of universities and colleges in Alberta to learn which Alberta Education credits that a particular university or college requires for general admission or for specific admission to a specific degree program. The bottom-line here is that many universities and colleges do not require a student to have earned a full Alberta diploma, but rather, these institutions require a student to have earned credits from specified courses. But…keep in mind that the requirements for specific courses and not the diploma constitute the “minimum requirements” for admission to that university or college; having the minimum requirements is not a recipe for success in a province where the competition for admission is high.

To learn more about earning Alberta Education credits for the purpose of earning the Alberta diploma, please contact our high school coordinator, Mrs. Natasha Hicks, at 1-780-467-5511 or through our email form.

Individual Course/Credit

Several post-secondary institutions do not require that a student have a high school diploma. Instead, these post-secondary institutions require a student to have earned specified marks and credits in specified courses. For example, the Faculties of Engineering of a given university would require a student to have passed a 30-level math course and one or two specific 30-level sciences.

Home-based learners can earn course credits at home through any one or more of the following options:

  1. Challenge exams for the core subjects (Math, Science, English, and Social Studies)
  2. Portfolio assessments for physical education and options courses
  3. The $650.00 additional grant to high school Home Education (Code 600) students who want to enrol into one online learning course from a funded and accredited school within Alberta. Contact brett@thee.ca for more information.

To learn more about earning Alberta Education credits, please contact our high school coordinator, Mrs. Natasha Hicks, at 1-780-467-5511 or through our email form.

COURSE CHALLENGE!

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Challenge Exams for Core Courses

Every school program in Alberta, including THEE, is required by regulation to assess a student’s learning and achievement of the requirements (ie “outcomes”) of the course for which the student wants to earn credit. No program, which is operating with integrity, will accept a course mark for a student (and submit the mark to the student’s Alberta Ed academic record) simply based on what the parent tells the school administrator. The school administrator is required to assess the student’s learning regarding the course.

We support the home education student who wants to earn Alberta Ed course credits via the parent-led option of studying a given course subject via independent study or by parent-led instruction (outside of a teacher-led course), by offering the student the opportunity to challenge a course via the following options:

1. Challenge exams for core courses

2. Portfolio assessment and “external credentials” for options and elective courses