Decolonizing Education Systems Graduate Certificate is a postgraduate certificate in Education & Teaching programme taught at Royal Roads University in Victoria, Canada. The programme is delivered on campus. Teaching is in English. Tuition for international students is CAD 11,031 per total (CAD 7,759 per total for local students).
At a glance
Degree:Postgraduate Certificate
Field:Education & Teaching
Delivery: On Campus
Language: English
Local tuition: CAD 7,759 / total
International tuition: CAD 11,031 / total
Information for the 2027/28 academic year · Last reviewed September 2026 ·
Program details
Overview
Aimed at settlers and non-Indigenous allies working in K-12, higher education, or professional learning, this fully online certificate examines how colonialism persists within education systems and builds relational, community-embedded practices to disrupt it. Courses run one at a time over roughly ten weeks each, at 10 to 20 hours of coursework per week, moving participants from critical reflection toward concrete action. Billed as the only graduate-level program of its kind in Canadian higher education, it is taught by a mix of Indigenous and non-Indigenous instructors and opens with a required non-credit course on academic integrity, followed by core courses such as Settler Decolonization and Decolonizing Educational Systems. Admission takes a flexible approach that weighs applicants' work and life experience alongside their formal education.
Requirements
Admission Requirements: Standard admission requires a four-year (or comparable) undergraduate degree and a minimum of three years of professional or volunteer experience associated with education or learning systems; the programme page states no separate minimum GPA. Applicants without a standard bachelor's degree may qualify under flexible admission on a sliding scale of post-secondary education against relevant full-time work experience: more than three years (90 credits) of post-secondary education requires at least four years of relevant work experience; two to three years (60-90 credits) requires at least six years; and less than two years (60 credits) requires at least seven years. The programme page defers non-native English speakers to Royal Roads' institution-wide requirement: for graduate-level entry, IELTS Academic 6.5 overall with a minimum of 6.5 in writing and speaking and 6.0 in listening and reading, or TOEFL iBT 88 overall with a minimum of 24 in writing and 20 in listening, reading and speaking. Applicants must submit official transcripts, two reference letters, a structured résumé, and a personal statement of 750-850 words; international applicants require a credential evaluation and language proficiency documentation.
Application Details
Application Deadline:Royal Roads University sets no single university-wide deadline: domestic and international applicants apply directly to the university through the same process, and every programme page checked shows one identical deadline for both. RRU consistently closes a programme's application exactly three calendar months before that programme's own intake start date — a September 2027 intake typically closes 7 June 2027 — though a few programmes (the Master of Global Management, for example) use a six-month lead instead. Each programme lists its own upcoming intakes, running from 2026 into 2028 depending on the programme, and RRU says it may still accept a late application if space and processing time remain, but it publishes no separate international deadline and no institution-wide equal-consideration or rolling policy. These are institution-wide dates; this programme publishes no deadline of its own.
