ABOUT ONTARIO
Ontario, one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada, is located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province by a large margin, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all Canadians, and is the second-largest province in total area. Ontario is fourth-largest in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included. It is home to the nation's capital city, Ottawa, and the nation's most populous city, Toronto.
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Ontario is bordered by the province of Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay and James Bay to the north, and Quebec to the east and northeast, and to the south by the US states of (from west to
east) Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. Almost all of Ontario's 2,700 km (1,678 mi) border with the United States follows inland waterways: from the west at Lake of the Woods, eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes/Saint Lawrence River drainage system. These are the Rainy River, the Pigeon River, Lake Superior, the St. Marys River, Lake Huron, the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River, Lake Erie, the Niagara River, Lake Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River from Kingston, Ontario, to the Quebec boundary just east of Cornwall, Ontario. There is only about 1 km (0.6 mi) of land border made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border.
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Ontario is sometimes conceptually divided into two regions, Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario. The great majority of Ontario's population and arable land is located in the south. In contrast, the larger, northern part of Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and is heavily forested.
The principal language of Ontario is English, the province's de facto official language, is spoken natively by about 70 percent of the province's population, according to the 2011 census. There is also a French-speaking population concentrated in the northeastern, eastern, and extreme Southern parts of the province, where under the French Language Services Act, provincial government services are required to be available in French if at least 10 percent of a designated area's population report French as their native language. Roughly 4% of Ontarians speak French as their mother tongue,[45] and 11% are bilingual, speaking both English and French, according to the 2011 census.[45] Immigrant languages such as Arabic, German, Dutch, Italian, Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Chinese and Punjabi are also spoken in the province.
In Canada, education falls under provincial jurisdiction. Publicly funded elementary and secondary schools are administered by the Ontario Ministry of Education, while colleges and universities are administered by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.
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Higher education in Ontario includes post-secondary education and skills training regulated by the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities and provided by universities, colleges of applied arts and technology, and private career colleges. The ministry administers laws covering 22 public universities, 24 public colleges (21 Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAATs) and three
Institutes of Technology and Advanced Learning (ITALs), 17 privately funded religious universities, and over 500 private career colleges. The Canadian constitution provides each province with the responsibility for higher education and there is no corresponding national federal ministry of higher education. Within Canadian federalism the division of responsibilities and taxing powers between the Ontario and Canadian governments creates the need for co-operation to fund and deliver higher education to students. Each higher education system aims to improve participation, access, and mobility for students. There are two central organizations that assist with the process of applying to Ontario universities and colleges: the Ontario Universities' Application Centre and Ontario College Application Service. While application services are centralized, admission and selection processes vary and are the purview of each institution independently. Admission to many Ontario post-secondary institutions can be highly competitive. Upon admission, students may get involved with regional student representation with the Canadian Federation of Students, the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, or through the College Student Alliance in Ontario.
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