Diploma Requirements for Ontario Secondary Schools

DIPLOMA Requirements

Determining Diploma Requirements for Students Transferring into Ontario Secondary Schools

For regular day school students who are transferring from home schooling, a non-inspected private school, or a school outside Ontario, principals will grant equiva-lency credits for placement purposes through the Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) process, based on their evaluation of the student’s previous learning (see section 7.2.5.1). Equivalency credits will be recorded on the student’s Ontario Student Transcript. (For information about determining equivalency credits for mature students, see section 7.2.5.2, “Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) for Mature Students”.)

Principals will use the following table as a guide to determine the number of credits and additional graduation requirements that a student must complete to qualify for the Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) under OS.

Requirements to qualify for the OSSD, where the student has normally completed

	Grade 9	Grade 10	Grade 11	More than Grade 11
Number of years successfully completed in a secondary school	1	2	3	More than 3
Minimum number of compulsory credits still to be earned and requirements to be met: English Mathematics Science	3 2 1	2 1 0	1 0 0	1^a 0 0
Literacy graduation	Required	Required	Required	Required
Community involvement^b	40 hours	-	-	-

The compulsory English credit for Grade 12 is required if its equivalent has not already been earned.
The principal will determine the number of hours of community involvement required for students who have successfully completed two or more years in a secondary school program.

In addition to the requirements identified above, principals will ensure that the following requirements are met

A student who has no previous Ontario credits but who has successfully completed more than three years of secondary school is required to earn a minimum of 4 credits in Grade 11 or Grade 12 courses before being recommended for the OSSD under OS.
A student who has successfully completed more than three years of secondary school education, has previously earned at least 3 Ontario credits, and has returned to the Ontario educational system may qualify for the OSSD under OS by completing a minimum of 1 Grade 11 or Grade 12 credit.