Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a Return to Oral Question asked by Mr. Bell on February 27, 2002 regarding high school graduation requirements.

Mr. Bell asked if students have to pass Alberta exams to graduate.

For grade 12 courses where diploma exams are written, Mr. Bell's understanding is correct. The final mark in a course is a blend, 50 percent assigned by the teacher based usually on various assignment criteria determined by the teacher, such as assignments and class tests, and 50 percent of the mark comes from the diploma exam results.

In some circumstances, for example, when new courses are piloted, the weighting for the diploma exam may be reduced. For example, this year, for the new applied math course, the teacher determined part of the mark will count for 80 percent of the final mark and the diploma exam score will count for 20 percent of the final mark.

The diploma exams are carefully administered, course-specific examinations based on approved curricula. Diploma examinations are mandatory for the following courses: English 30/33, Math 30/33, Social Studies 30/33, Biology 30, Chemistry 30, Physics 30, Science 30 and Francais 30. For other high school courses, the mark is determined at the school level normally by the course teacher. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.