Cert in Health Care Aide is a certificate in Health Sciences programme taught at Lakeland College in Vermilion, Canada. The programme runs for 1 year, delivered on campus. Tuition for international students is CAD 16,330 per year (CAD 7,322 per year for local students).
This one-year, full-time certificate at Lakeland College's Lloydminster campus is delivered face-to-face and prepares students to provide client-centred personal care. Students learn personal grooming and hygiene support and medical delivery assistance, training in nursing labs equipped with modern equipment and technology. The program includes three clinical placements totalling 320 hours across continuing care, acute care, and community or home care settings, giving students practical exposure to the range of environments where health care aides work. Admission requires an English Language Arts credit with a minimum grade of 60 percent, proof of English language proficiency for ESL applicants, a completed Digital Literacy Self-Declaration Form, current immunization records, a criminal record check, and certifications in WHMIS, Standard First Aid and CPR-C. Graduates are prepared for roles in home care, long-term care, assisted living facilities, hospices, hospitals and health centres. The program suits students seeking a direct, practical route into frontline personal care work, combining classroom and lab instruction with substantial hands-on clinical placement time across multiple care settings.
Requirements
Admission Requirements: Admission requires one of: English Language Arts 20-1 or 20-2 at a minimum 60%, English 30-1 or 30-2 at a minimum 55%, or the Next-Generation ACCUPLACER assessment with a minimum 237 in reading and writing. For English-language proficiency the program follows Alberta Health's own standard rather than Lakeland's general institutional requirement: proficiency can be shown through a Canadian high-school equivalency diploma, three consecutive years of English-medium high school study in Canada, two consecutive years of full-time English-medium post-secondary study in Canada, or a test taken within two years of program start — IELTS Academic 6.0 overall with no band below 5.5, TOEFL iBT 71, CELPIP General 7 with no section below 6, Canadian Language Benchmarks 7 in every strand, Duolingo 95 overall with no sub-score below 95, or CELBAN 7 in every area. Applicants must also complete a computer-literacy self-declaration, provide current immunization records, and obtain a clear criminal record check with vulnerable sector check; valid WHMIS, Standard First Aid, and CPR-C certification are required before practicum.
Application Details
Start Date:Fall and Winter
Application Deadline:Domestic applicants to Lakeland College apply through ApplyAlberta, which opens on a fixed recurring schedule — the first Wednesday of October (for Fall), May (for Winter), and August (for Spring) of the year before the term, with Fall 2027 having opened the first Wednesday of October 2026 — and applications for most programs stay open on a rolling basis until one business day before the program starts, subject to program-specific exclusions and waitlists. International applicants use a separate process and Lakeland states their deadlines close earlier than domestic to allow time for visa processing, but publishes no specific international closing date; it instead recommends starting at least a year ahead of the intended start date. Lakeland does not publish a fixed equal-consideration date for either group. These are institution-wide dates; this programme publishes no deadline of its own.
