The Ontario Academic Credit (OAC), which may also be known as 12b ( or CPO) was a fifth year of secondary school education that previously existed in the province of Ontario, Canada, designed for students preparing for post-secondary education. The OAC curriculum was codified by the Ontario Ministry of Education in Ontario Schools: Intermediate and Senior (OS:IS) and its revisions. The Ontario education system had a final fifth year of secondary education, known as Grade 13 from 1921 to 1988; grade 13 was replaced by OAC for students starting high school (grade 9) in 1984.
OAC continued to act as a fifth year of secondary education until it was phased out in 2003.
History
The fifth year in the Ontario secondary school system had existed in Ontario for 82 years, from 1921 to 2003, first as Grade 13 and then as the Ontario Academic Credit (OAC). Despite the fact that students could graduate from the secondary school system in four years, a fifth year of secondary education continued to persist in Ontario, with fewer than 15 percent of students exercising the option to graduate in four years; reports stated that between 20 percent and 25 percent of students chose to repeat one or more OAC years.
1995: Final phase-out and elimination
Another Royal Commission on Learning, set up in 1995 by the 35th Legislative Assembly of Ontario provincial government, had recommended the elimination of OAC. The incoming 36th Legislative Assembly of Ontario provincial government acted upon the recommendations of the commission in 1998, but students still in the five-year system would continue in the OAC system until they graduated. The reforms led to 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. OS:IS more formally allowed for the completion of schooling after only 12 grades. Under OS:IS, OAC year was the final year of high school in Ontario.
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, and so in many schools it was common for Grade 11 or Grade 12 students to have taken some 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 if the student was university bound.
Consequences of elimination
The elimination of the fifth year of high school education in Ontario led to a number of consequences, most notably the double cohorts in 2003, in which an unusually high proportion of students graduated in Ontario. Since the elimination of OAC, some have noted that a greater proportion of students have entered post-secondary education.
Double cohorts
The elimination of OAC 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. With the increase in students entering post-secondary education, the provincial government set aside additional funding for colleges and universities to build more infrastructure such as residences and classrooms. Double-cohort students who chose the latter options in their turn affected those in the year after them, creating a ripple effect. A higher-than-typical number of withdrawals from group education fund investments to pay for post-secondary expenses resulted in lower payout per individual in the double cohort year.
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With a significant minority of students below the legal drinking age, 18-year-olds are legally excluded from many 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.
Assessment of elimination
Patrick Brady and Philip Allingham of Lakehead University have 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. While the fifth year of secondary education was formally eliminated, 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.
Both Brady and Allingham note that the motivations behind the victory lap can be traced to the province's history of a fifth year of secondary school education, making it a basic assumption of secondary school life for students in Ontario. They also note that it may represent a form of transition anxiety, as students seek to prolong their secondary education, which can be seen as a safe environment, or to acquire further maturity before moving on to their post-secondary education.