Canada’s Three Types of Colleges

By Alex Usher. If one takes a historical approach, then there are, broadly speaking, three types of colleges in Canada.  There are Quebec’s CEGEPs, which are sui generis both in Canada and internationally.  Technically creatures of the 1960s, their roots go back over a century to the French Catholic tradition of colleges classiques, which were a major form of both secondary and post-secondary education (they straddled the two) from the early nineteenth century onwards. Following the Parent Report, these colleges had a secondary vocational mission tacked on to them in the re-organization of the Quebec education system after the Parent Report. More...