page_title: Nova Scotia
section_title: Education
hierarchical_section_title: Nova Scotia / Education
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of the main building at Université Sainte-Anne, Church Point, Nova Scotia. Photo was taken ca. 1995. It was scanned from a print and modified in Paint Shop Pro to remove parallax and improve contrast.
context_page_description: Nova Scotia is a province in eastern Canada. With a population of 923,598 as of 2016, it is the most populous of Canada's three Maritime provinces and four Atlantic provinces. It is the country's second-most densely populated province and second-smallest province by area, both after neighbouring Prince Edward Island. Its area of 55,284 square kilometres includes Cape Breton Island and 3,800 other coastal islands. The peninsula that makes up Nova Scotia's mainland is connected to the rest of North America by the Isthmus of Chignecto, on which the province's land border with New Brunswick is located. The province borders the Bay of Fundy to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and east, and is separated from Prince Edward Island and the island of Newfoundland by the Northumberland and Cabot straits, respectively.
  The land that comprises what is now Nova Scotia has been inhabited by the indigenous Miꞌkmaq people for thousands of years. France's first settlement in North America, Port-Royal, was established in 1605 and intermittently served in various locations as the capital of the French colony of Acadia for over a hundred years.
context_section_description: The Minister of Education is responsible for the administration and delivery of education, as defined by the Education Act and other acts relating to colleges, universities and private schools. The powers of the Minister and the Department of Education are defined by the Ministerial regulations and constrained by the Governor-In-Council regulations.
  All children until the age of 16 are legally required to attend school or the parent needs to perform home schooling. Nova Scotia's education system is split up into eight different regions including; Tri-County (22 schools), Annapolis Valley (42 schools), South Shore (25 schools), Chignecto-Central (67 schools), Halifax (135 schools), Strait (20 schools) and Cape Breton-Victoria Regional Centre for Education (39 schools).
  Nova Scotia has more than 450 public schools for children. The public system offers primary to Grade 12. There are also private schools in the province. Public education is administered by seven regional school boards, responsible primarily for English instruction and French immersion, and also province-wide by the Conseil Scolaire Acadien Provincial, which administers French instruction to students whose primary language is French.
  The Nova Scotia Community College system has 13 campuses around the province. With a focus on training and education, the college was established in 1988 by amalgamating the province's former vocational schools. In addition to the provincial community college system, there are more than 90 registered private colleges in Nova Scotia.
  Ten universities are also situated in Nova Scotia, including Dalhousie University, University of King's College, Saint Mary's University, Mount Saint Vincent University, NSCAD University, Acadia University, Université Sainte-Anne, Saint Francis Xavier University, Cape Breton University and the Atlantic School of Theology.
caption: Université Sainte-Anne is a Francophone university situated in Pointe-de-l'Église.
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