Applying to Bachelor of Education

Find out how you can join our passionate community of educators.

Quick Find

Eligibility Checklist | Online Application | References | Supplemental Application Form |
Self-Assessment Form | Transcripts | Application Status | Help and Questions

Eligibility checklist

  • Bachelor’s Degree
    • four-year (minimum 120-credit) bachelor’s degree or equivalent at an accredited post-secondary institution
    • specific course requirements depending on the teaching pathway you wish to pursue, details can be found on the self-assessment form
  • Experience Hours
    • minimum of 75 hours of practical experience (paid or volunteer) working with young people; preferably at the age level you wish to teach
    • strongly recommend relevant experiences within the last two years

Admission to the Okanagan School of Education is competitive and the Bachelor of Education program has limited enrolment. Satisfying the minimum admission requirements does not guarantee admission.

Applicants’ teachable subject(s) will be considered when determining admissibility.

For full admissions information visit the UBC Okanagan academic calendar.

Application Dates

The 2026/2027 application intake will open in the fall of 2025.

A complete application package will contain:

  • Online application
  • Supplemental application form
  • Reference reports
  • Self-assessment form*
  • Transcripts*

Plan ahead to ensure you meet important deadlines and other target dates.

*Please note, once you submit your online application it can take up to two weeks to be able to upload your self-assessment form. It may also take 4 to 6 weeks for us to process your transcripts and indicate that we have received them in the Applicant Service Centre. This will not impact your application.

How to apply

1. Submit your Online Application

Current and Former UBC Students

Apply online through the Applicant Service Centre (ASC).

  • Once you login, click on “Readmission/Change of Program”
  • If the “Readmission/Change of Program” application is not appearing on the home page, click the “Edit Profile” tab and select “Readmission/Change of Program”
  • Under Program Selection, select:
    • Campus: UBC Okanagan
    • Program: Bachelor of Education – Teaching Adolescents OR Teaching Children
    • Start Date: Winter Semester: September to April

If the website is not loading for you, please clear your browsing history, cookies and cache, or open the website in “Incognito” mode, or try a different web browser.

New to UBC Students

Apply through EducationPlanner BC (EPBC).

  • View UBC Undergraduate Programs and Admissions Steps to Apply for detailed step-by-step information on how to apply through EducationPlanner.
  • You do not have to fill out the Personal Profile as you will be filling out a personal essay in the supplemental application.

French Pathway

To apply for the French pathway, you will select either Teaching Children or Teaching Adolescents in your online application. You will indicate in the Supplemental Application Form that you are interested in the French pathway. You may upload your proof of French competency in the supplemental application or email it to parcours.francais@ubc.ca.

After submitting your online application

Once you have submitted your application, you can:

You will not receive separate instructions to complete the Confidential Reference Form, or the Supplemental Application form. These tasks will not appear in the Application Service Centre (ASC).

*The self-assessment form will appear and be submitted in the Application Service Centre (ASC). It can take up to two weeks after you submit your online application, before you can upload the self-assessment form(s).

If you have missed adding a previously attended post-secondary institution, or register for a course after you have submitted your application, you will need to contact the UBC Okanagan Undergraduate Admissions team to add the institution to your application.

2. Arrange for two Reference Reports

You must arrange for the submission of two (2) confidential reference reports to be sent on your behalf. Please ensure you arrange this early to provide your references ample time to complete the form. The School of Education will not accept more than two reports. Letters in lieu of these report forms are also not acceptable.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you have provided your references:

  • your name as it appears on your UBC Admissions Application
  • teaching pathway preference
  • UBC student number
  • primary email address.

Further, it is your responsibility to ensure that your references understand the importance of including those pieces of information accurately when submitting their reference.

Your references must:

  • be directly associated (e.g., your supervisor) with the activities you list on the Supplemental Application form.
  • have personally observed you working in a face-to-face or an online context where your primary role was to instruct or interact, in group or individual settings, with children and/or youth.
  • be credible authorities who can speak to your abilities, experiences, and interests relevant to the teaching profession. They cannot be a family member or a personal friend.

If you have relevant experiences from the same organization (e.g. summer camp, hockey school) you can submit two references from the same organization if they are related to different aspects of your experience. The key is that both references should speak to your relevant skills and experience working with children or youth and both have personally observed you doing so.

Examples of appropriate references Examples of inappropriate references
  • An Individual who has personally observed you in a face-to-face or online context where your primary role was to instruct or interact with children and/or youth
  • School administrator (e.g., principal, vice-principal)
  • Teacher at an elementary, middle, or secondary school
  • Camp director
  • Youth program coordinator
  • TA-supervising professor
  • An Individual who has NOT personally observed you in a face-to-face or online context where your primary role was to instruct or interact with children and/or youth
  • Family members (including in-laws, stepfamily, extended family, etc.)
  • Friends

Submission Instructions

Send your references this link: https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_a4thLtc9I5oucvQ

Confirmation email

You will receive an automatic email with a confirmation that we received your reference. Your reference will also receive a confirmation email. This email will be from noreply@qemailserver.com. Please check your junk or spam folders. If you have not received a confirmation email 48 hours after your reference had submitted their form and they have not received a confirmation email, please email us at education.ubco@ubc.ca.

Please note: If you are applying to UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan your references will be required to submit a confidential report to both campuses.

3. Complete your Supplemental Application Form

The Supplemental Application Form includes questions about your practical experiences (you can provide up to three) and your educational goals through a personal essay.

  • minimum of 75 hours of practical experience (volunteer or paid), preferably at the age level you wish to teach.
  • strongly recommend current relevant experiences within the last two years.
  • a range and variety of instructional experiences is encouraged to better prepare for the program. Typical experiences include:
    • working in school classrooms as a volunteer or assistant
    • teaching dance
    • coaching team sports
    • working as a summer camp counselor.
  • experience in international settings is valuable, but we recommend experience in Canadian settings.

Normally an applicant without experience with school-aged children and/or youth will not be admitted to the program.

Recognizing you may wish to plan your responses, we will be asking for up to three experiences. In each experience you will be asked to provide:

  • Name of organization
  • Name(s) of supervisor(s)
  • Supervisor’s title
  • Title of position you held
  • Start and end date
  • Total number of weeks, hours per week and total hours*
  • Brief description of the activities you engaged in
  • Age group
  • Type of experience (was it a school related experience? Was it volunteer or paid?)

*If you are currently involved in one or more of these experiences, please enter the date you anticipate completing your involvement, even if the date is after the January 31 submission deadline. In this case, please enter the projected number of total hours of your involvement. You will not be required to submit proof of timesheets. 

If after the submission of your application, for any reason the number of hours gets drastically reduced, please email us at education.ubco@ubc.ca with your student number and full name in the email subject line, and explain why your projected number of hours have been drastically reduced.

Recognizing that you may want to plan, write, and/or polish your personal essay before pasting it into this form, the essay question is provided below for your convenience:

Describe your goals as an educator and the unique qualities and personal experiences you will bring to this role. Using specific examples from your experience with school age children and/or youth, reflect on how your unique qualities and experiences will:

a. shape your approach to teaching and learning, AND

b. demonstrate your commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization.

(Maximum 500 words)

Submission Instructions

Submit your application using this online form.

Confirmation email

You will receive an automatic email with a confirmation that we received your application. This email will be from noreply@qemailserver.com. This confirmation will include a copy of your responses. Please check your junk and spam folders. If you do not receive this email within 48hrs of submitting your application, please email us at education.ubco@ubc.ca.

Post-submission changes to this form

After completing and submitting an OSE Supplemental Application Form, you are allowed to re-submit a second fully completed Supplemental Application Form. OSE will review the most recent submission.

We strongly encourage you to save copies of each of your written answers in a Word document and copy and paste them into the form to complete it. This way, if you choose to redo any questions, or if you wish to modify your essay, you won’t have to re-type the entire application form.

Please note: If you are applying to UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan you will be required to submit your experience summaries and personal essay to both campuses

Experience Hour FAQs

We still consider experience from several years ago; however, it’s strongly recommended that you have current relevant experiences from within the last two years. Experience in international settings is valuable, but we recommend experience in Canadian settings.

If you’re transitioning into teaching after being out of university for some time, we recommend connecting with an academic advisor, as they can help you navigate the transition, and identify courses that you may need to take. You may also want to look into volunteering in schools to build more recent experience.

 

To arrange shadowing or volunteer opportunities, contact school administrators in your area. Some schools may have established processes for arranging these experiences. Be prepared to engage in a criminal record check to become a volunteer in the schools. Some districts have their own recommended process.

Practical experience can be paid or volunteer hours. To ensure your hours are practical, ask yourself:  

  • Am I working or volunteering with young people at the age range I wish to teach 
  • Am I able to receive a reference from someone who can observe me working with children or youth, and speak to my abilities in a professional capacity 
    • In an ideal situation, this person is your supervisor and can speak to your instructional capabilities.  
    • As a friendly reminder, this person can not be a friend or a family member.

Some suggestions for options to consider include:  

  • Contact your nearest school and ask about volunteer opportunities.
  • We have an extensive list of community partners that we work with as part of our Community Field Experience. We suggest looking at their website to see if they have volunteer or work opportunities, or you may need to contact the organizations to see if they have anything available.   
  • For current or past UBCO students, there is the UBCO job and volunteer board.
  • For current UBCO students, this would be more hours than what you need (a co-op placement is 420 hours and not for credit), but you can contact the Co-Op office to see if there are placement opportunities with them that involve working with children or youth. 

4. Submit your self-assessment form

Review the BEd self-assessment guide prior to starting the form:

The self-assessment guide contains examples of Canadian Studies, Lab Sciences and Mathematics UBCO courses that can meet the requirements. 

Submission instructions

It can take up to two weeks after you submit your online application, before you can upload the self-assessment form(s).

  1. Login to your UBC Applicant Service Centre (ASC)
    • If the website is not loading for you, please clear your browsing history, cookies and cache, or open the website in “Incognito” mode, or try a different web browser.
  2. Under the “Your next steps” section, select “Manage Documents”.
  3. Upload your BEd self-Assessment Form(s).
    • Please note: you will not be able to change these forms once they are submitted. If you have submitted your self-assessment forms, and wish to revise them, you will need to contact the UBC Okanagan Undergraduate Admissions team.

If you have applied to both the Teaching Children and the Teaching Adolescent pathways, please ensure that you have uploaded the correct self-assessment form to the corresponding pathway.

5. Send in your transcripts

Submit your official transcripts for any post-secondary studies at institutions other than UBC.

SUBMIT TRANSCRIPTS

After we’ve received your documents, it can take two to four weeks for the information to be updated on your UBC Applicant Service Centre.

  • If the Applicant Service Centre website is not loading for you, please clear your browsing history, cookies and cache, or open the website in “Incognito” mode, or try a different web browser.

If you have missed adding a previously attended post-secondary institution, or register for a course after you have submitted your application, you will need to contact the UBC Okanagan Undergraduate Admissions team to add the institution to your application to ensure we can receive the official transcripts.

Please note: If you are applying to UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan you will be required to submit your transcripts to two different locations: The Teacher Education Office for your Vancouver application, and the Undergraduate Admissions Office (located in Vancouver) for your Okanagan application.

Transcript FAQs

All previously submitted transcripts will be on file and our Admissions team will have access to them.  

If you don’t have access to Workday, you can directly log in to the UBC Official Documents Tool to order your transcript.

Follow the step-by-step instructions on how to order your transcript, starting with Step 2: Order Official Transcript: https://students.ok.ubc.ca/courses-money-enrolment/transcripts/ 

Application Status

Prospective students will be notified of an admission decision any time between March and June of the same year.

You can check the status of your application through the UBC Applicant Service Centre.

Accepted applicants will be enrolled in a Navigating the BEd Canvas course starting the beginning of May of the same year, although some of the information is available through our BEd resources, including a pre-assignment and information about course registration.

Help and Questions

Questions about… Contact
Course requirements (e.g. determining if your course meets the criteria) Student Advising Services
UBC Online Application assistance Undergraduate Admissions
Bachelor of Education program education.ubco@ubc.ca or 250.807.9808
Supplemental form application or Reference form assistance education.ubco@ubc.ca or 250.807.9808
BEd, French Pathway  parcours.francais@ubc.ca

All communication and interactions with the Okanagan School of Education are considered part of the admissions process and are taken into account when considering applicants for admission. Admission may be denied to applicants who communicate in an unprofessional manner or who act in an inappropriate manner during the admissions process, regardless of academic standing.

PROSPECTIVE APPLICANT EMAIL LIST

Register to receive emails about information sessions, application open dates, deadline reminders and program updates.

Applying to UBC Vancouver

If you are applying to UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan you will be required to submit a complete application, including personal essay, experience requirements and references, to each.