Education in Toronto

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms includes provisions that guarantee English and French language schools, and reaffirms the rights of separate schools in Ontario.

Four school boards in Toronto provide public elementary, secondary, and adult education. The four school boards operate as either English or French first language school boards, and as either secular or separate school boards.

The number of school boards based in Toronto, and the kinds of institutions that they operate are a result of constitutional arrangements found in the Constitution of Canada. Separate schools in Ontario are constitutionally protected under Section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867, and is further reinforced by Section 29 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. French language schools in Toronto are constitutionally protected under Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In 1980 there were 7 French schools (secular and separate) in Metropolitan Toronto. Maurice Bergevin, the vice principal of the Etienne Brule School, stated that a study from Montreal in 1971 noted that if francophones in Toronto had the same proportion of schools that anglophones had in Montreal, there would be 31 francophone schools in Metropolitan Toronto. According to a 1971 Canadian federal census, Toronto had 160,000 francophones.[1] The number of French first language schools in Toronto has since grown to 26 (secular and separate). These do not include English school board's French immersion programs, which was intended for students whose first language was not French.[2]

Several alternative schools in Toronto are also operated by Toronto's public school boards.[3] The oldest is ALPHA Alternative School, which opened in 1972.[4] The first conference for publicly funded alternative schools in the Greater Toronto Area happened in Nov, 2012.[5] Ontario's Ministry of Education distance education program, the Independent Learning Centre, is also headquartered in Toronto.

Conseil scolaire Viamonde is a French first language secular school board headquartered in Toronto.

The following public school boards operate secular schools in Toronto:

• Conseil scolaire Viamonde (CSV), French first language school board
• Toronto District School Board (TDSB), English first language school board

Prior to the amalgamation of Toronto in 1998, French secular schools were managed by the Conseil des écoles françaises de la communauté urbaine de Toronto (CÉFCUT). In 1998, CÉFCUT was merged with other school boards from the Greater Golden Horseshoe and the Ontario Peninsula, forming CSV. In the same year, the English secular school boards of Metropolitan Toronto were merged to form TDSB. The former English secular school boards that were merged into TDSB include:

Headquarters for the Toronto Catholic District School Board, the city's English-language separate school board.

The following public school boards operate separate schools in Toronto.

• Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir, French first language school board
• Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB), English first language school board

Prior to the amalgamation of Toronto in 1998, English and French separate schools in Metropolitan Toronto was managed by the Metropolitan Separate School Board (MSSB; Les Conseil des écoles catholiques du Grand Toronto in French). French separate schools in Metropolitan Toronto were operated by Section de langue française, a French language unit of MSSB. In 1998, MSSB was reorganized, with its English and French components split. MSSB's English component formed TCDSB, whereas its French component merged with several other French separate school boards in the Greater Golden Horseshoe to form Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir.

Toronto is also home to a number of private/independent elementary, secondary, and university-preparatory schools, including:

Upper Canada College in Toronto. Founded in 1829, it is the oldest independent school in Ontario.

There are several private elementary and secondary religious institutions based in Toronto. In addition, there are two privately managed religious school boards that operate schools in Toronto. They include the Centre for Jewish Education, and the Toronto Adventist District School Board

• Sathya Sai School of Canada[6]

Toronto Academy was a former secondary school located on Front Street between Bay and York Streets[8] and had ties to Knox College, Toronto. Established in 1846 as an alternative to provincial schools, it severed ties with Knox College in 1849, and was closed shortly afterwards in 1852.[9] William Lyon Mackenzie's son, future Chief Justice Thomas Moss as well as first African Canadian doctor Anderson Ruffin Abbott.

Before 1987, a number of private Roman Catholic high schools were operated by several religious orders across Toronto. In 1987, a number of these schools joined the public Metropolitan Separate School Board after the funding was announced beginning in 1985. They included:

The University of Toronto is one of several universities located in the city.

There are six universities located in Toronto. Four universities are located downtown, OCAD University, Ryerson University, Université de l'Ontario français and the University of Toronto. The University of Toronto also operates two satellite campuses, the University of Toronto Scarborough, located in the eastern portion of the city, and the University of Toronto Mississauga, located in the neighbouring city of Mississauga. The other two universities, Tyndale University, and York University, are based in an area of the city known as North York. York University maintains two campuses in North York, with plans to build another in the neighbouring city of Markham. Four of the five aforementioned universities are public degree-granting institutions. Tyndale is a private university and a Protestant seminary, and is the only private institution in Toronto with degree-granting authority.

In addition to these six institutions, the city is also home to the University of Guelph-Humber, a collaborative institution between the University of Guelph (based in Guelph, Ontario), and Humber College (a college based in Toronto). Guelph-Humber is not an independent institution and does not have the ability to issue its own degrees. Guelph-Humber acts as a satellite campus for its parent institutions, and its graduates are awarded degrees/diplomas from either the University of Guelph or Humber College.

In Canada, the term college typically refers to a technical, applied art, or applied science school. Four colleges have their principal campuses located in Toronto, Centennial College, George Brown College, Humber College, and Seneca College. In addition, the city is also home to the satellite campus for Collège Boréal, a college based in Sudbury, Ontario. From 1995 to 2001, the French first language college, Collège des Grands-Lacs, operated in downtown Toronto. Following its closure in 2001, Collège Boréal assumed control of Grands-Lacs facilities, maintaining it as a satellite campus for the institution. Overall, the five colleges operate 29 campuses spread throughout the city.