Ontario: Adults without a high-school diploma, who are interested in pursuing post-secondary education, may obtain the Academic and Career Entrance (ACE) certificate. The ACE certificate is currently offered by all Ontario colleges. The certificate usually takes 4 to 8 months to complete.²⁰ There is no tuition fee and some financial support may be available to cover childcare and travel costs. Post-secondary institutions generally recognize this certificate as equivalent to a regular diploma.

Québec: While there is no official academic upgrading program in Québec, most colleges offer some type of upgrading program.

While all the provinces in this study have academic upgrading programs, Ontario is the only province that has a province-wide program, Academic Career Excellence (ACE). Not surprisingly, Ontario is the only province that reported systematically evaluating its upgrading programs. An independent evaluation (Bainbridge & Associates, 2001) tracked the postsecondary outcomes of individuals who participated in ACE and then moved on to further education in the college system. The study tracks 1,058 individuals who graduated from an ACE program in 1995 and enrolled in a post-secondary program in one of ten participating Ontario college. Students were tracked from enrolment in their first semester of a post-secondary program to graduation, withdrawal, or failure.

The results showed that the vast majority of ACE students who enrolled in a post-secondary program achieved positive academic outcomes. By the end of the study, 60 percent of the ACE students had graduated or were still enrolled in post-secondary programs. The failure rate was 17 percent and and an additional 23 percent of the ACE students withdrew from their program. While the majority of withdrawing students indicated that they were doing so for financial reasons, about 30 percent of withdrawing students went on to enrol in a second program. The participants are most vulnerable to withdrawing in the first semester of their program. About 63 percent of all withdrawals occur in this semester. The study also found that the grade point averages were comparable to non-ACE college students.

Given the strong correlations between first semester performance and subsequent performance, more recent studies only tracked the first semester outcomes of ACE students who enrol in postsecondary programs. The results continue to suggest that the ACE program is successful in preparing students for college. For example, for the academic year, 2004/2005, 82 percent of ACE students successfully completed their first semester of post-secondary education (8 percent withdrew, and 10 percent did not achieve the required GPA to continue) (College Sector Committee for Adult Upgrading, 2005).

²⁰ For an example of a college ACE offering, see http://www.senecac.on.ca/fulltime/ACADEMIC.html.