[2] The earliest form of formal education in Alberta is usually preschool which is not mandatory and is then followed by the partially-mandatory kindergarten to Grade 12.
[6] The first schools in what is now Alberta were parochial, that is, they were organized, owned and operated by Church clergy, missionaries, or authorities, both Roman Catholic and Protestant.
The ministry has the ability to dissolve school authorities, which has only happened twice in provincial history, as recently as 1999.
One of the trustees who was a member of the 1999 dissolution was notable Alberta politician Danielle Smith, whom as of 2012 is the Leader of the Official Opposition.
All school authorities are required to employ teachers who are certificated by Alberta Education under the Executive Director of Teaching & Leadership Excellence.
The relevant legislation requires that all the money raised by this property tax must go to the support of K–12 education provided by school authorities.
The provincial government pools the property tax funds from across the province and distributes them, according to a formula, to public and separate school jurisdictions and Francophone authorities.
[citation needed] In addition to the property tax collected, the provincial government allocates money each year from the General Revenue Fund, for the support of K–12 public and separate school education.
Private schools and homeschooling receive some funding, but parents will pay a substantial portion of the cost.
Students in Alberta have their courses mandated but normally after each section of schooling they are given more freedom in what they can choose to take.
Then starting in high school most courses begin to be labeled with a dash, for example "Math 20-1", where "-1" is the highest level followed by "-2", etc.
Under the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta, the government adopted a discovery/inquiry based curriculum for the 2008-2009 school year, which has been heavily criticized since then by people citing declining PISA scores.
Provincial Achievement Tests (PATs) are exams taken in grades 6 and 9 by almost all students of the province in the subject areas of mathematics, sciences, language arts, and social studies.
The Programme for International Student Assessment or PISA's, is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nations of 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading.
There are 13 colleges that receive direct public funding, along with two technical institutes, NAIT and SAIT.
Students may also receive government loans and grants while attending selected private institutions.
There has been some controversy in recent years over the rising cost of post-secondary education for students (as opposed to taxpayers).
In 2005, Premier Ralph Klein made a promise that he would freeze tuition and look into ways of reducing schooling costs.