Dear Students, Parents, and Partners:

For the past year, we have seen a drastic increase in foreign university applications amongst our students, such as the UK, Australia, USA, and many Asian Universities. While we are happy to see our graduates exploring the world and finding the most suitable academic paths for themselves, we have also noticed some misleading and concerning information roaming the academic field which led to unnecessary worries and additional waste of resources. Hence, for better transparency, assurance, and ease of mind, I would like to take this opportunity to address some of these pieces of information out there.

Officially, the Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) is a diploma granted to secondary school graduates in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is part of the publicly-funded province-wide school system. It is awarded to all students who complete the Ontario education curriculum. As a Ministry-inspected private high school, we adhere to every aspect of the policies and legislations set out by the Ontario Mistry of Education and therefore were authorized to deliver and grant OSSD credits, same as all the public schools in Ontario.

One of the misleading pieces of information we have stomped upon entails that OSSD is or will not be accepted by certain universities, such as The University of Edinburgh. The fact is that due to an increased number of fraudulent documents, such as OSSD Diplomas and Official Transcripts, presented to these universities pretending to be OSSD graduates, these universities have simply employed a more meticulous back-to-source verification process. Our school keeps open communication with all the universities worldwide to aid these verification processes and assures our students are treated fairly and equally. Despite that there still are and will be applications exploiting the advantages OSSD brings, universities will not simply refuse all OSSD applicants, but rather work with schools like ours to streamline the verification process and embraces graduates from one of the most advanced education systems.

The other information we have received claims that our graduates will not be accepted at The University of Sydney. Despite that our guidance department periodically communicates with the Compliance Assistant Department of The University of Sydney to verify student documents, this misinterpreted information was over-exaggerated by certain bodies with their own agendas overlooking the fact that “Due to the volume of fraudulent activities, we have been putting all OSSD applications on hold and, for now, will only accept applications from a selected number of OSSD providers that we have verified. Once we are satisfied with the verification response and evidence from the selected schools, we will expand and invite other schools to participate in the verification process” according to my communication with the university. In other words, they are in the process of working with Ontario schools to establish a less demanding and more direct verification process, and will later cover all the schools.

With years of experience in the education field, our school and teachers perform with the highest standards to assure that our students receive the education that helps them achieve their full potential. To quote Sydney J. Harris, “the whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows”, and we hope to be the hands that push it open.

Sincerely,

Ivana Djuric
School Principal