Education Assistant

Some of the most important learning in a classroom happens beside one child, one task at a time. Assiniboine’s Education Assistant certificate is a nine-month programme that prepares you to help children and youth succeed in schools and support settings. It runs as a January cohort at the Victoria Avenue East campus in Brandon.

Child Development and Introduction to the Profession lay the groundwork, explaining how children grow and what an education assistant’s role is in a school team. Strategies for Learning, Language and Literacy, and Assistive Technologies give you practical methods for supporting reading, communication and independence. Guiding Behaviour and Inclusive Practices focus on students with diverse needs, Cross Cultural Education and Indigenous Perspectives prepare you for Manitoba’s classrooms, and Interpersonal Communications, Observation and Report Writing, and Professionalism cover teamwork with teachers, clinicians and families.

The programme finishes with Field Practice, a practicum of at least 80 hours inside an educational setting, where you apply these strategies with real students under supervision. Because you will work with children, a current criminal record vulnerable sector check and child abuse registry check are required, and the school monitors them before field practice begins. Graduates earn Respect in Schools online certification and can receive advanced standing into Assiniboine’s Early Childhood Education diploma.

Education Assistant graduates work in elementary, middle years and high schools, often as direct aides for students with special needs, and with social service agencies as youth workers. Other roles include private aide for a child who needs one-to-one assistance, inclusion support worker and before and after school programme assistant. The certificate suits patient, observant people who enjoy helping young people and are comfortable following a teacher’s plan while adapting it to one learner.