Office of Teacher Certification

Approved Certificate Programs

Teachers must obtain pre-approval for a certificate program to be eligible for an increase in certificate classification.

Section 2(1) of the Teacher Certification Regulations defines certificate programs as follows:

"Certificate Programmeans a program of studies concerning public education consisting of at least 5 full university courses (30 credit hours), any of which may be at the undergraduate level, or the approved equivalent, that are developed as an in-service experience for teachers, designed by or with a university, including credit courses in either or both:

  1. academic disciplines taught in the public schools or other approved disciplines related to public school education, or
  2. professional studies

Because certificate programs were developed to be a means by which a teacher added new or needed subject fields to their list of teachable subjects, one of criteria reviewed for pre-approval is a teacher's previous studies. That is, if you are already qualified to teach a subject (you hold a major or minor endorsation in a subject or it's equivalent), you would not be eligible to take a certificate program in that subject area.

All certificate programs are expected to meet regional centre for education/CSAP needs and as such, are developed in cooperation with at least one Nova Scotia regional centre for education/CSAP. For this reason, there are currently no certificate programs approved for delivery by a university outside of Nova Scotia.

The current list of certificate programs that hold Ministerial approval includes:

  • Acadia University                        Certificate in Teaching Mathematics (Grades 4-9)
  • Dalhousie University                   Certificate in Technology Education
  • NSCAD                                         Visual Arts Certificate for Teachers
  • St. Mary's University                    Certificate in Linguistics
  • St. Francis Xavier University       Certificate in Elementary Mathematics Pedagogy
  • St. Francis Xavier University       Certificate in Outdoor Education
  • ​Cape Breton University                Certificate in High School Mathematics Education *NEW*

Note: Teachers are reminded to review the pre-approval process mentioned above.