Ontario has a binary postsecondary education system consisting essentially of universities on one hand and colleges on the other. (see Structure for details) This binary structure has been long-standing and intentional with little mobility between the two sides; a characteristic that has been maintained through formidable resistance from universities to develop a more articulated system. Only in recent years have pathways begun to emerge between these two otherwise distinct types of institutions.
In 1996, the provincial government initiated the College and University Consortium Council (CUCC) in order to foster closer collaboration between colleges and universities in Ontario. Three years later, in 1999, the Council of Ontario Universities (COU) and the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario (ACAATO) jointly endorsed a set of principles governing mobility and transfer that has become known as the Port Hope Accord.
In the decade following, a collection of laddering and degree-completion agreements had begun to accumulate on the Ontario College University Transfer Guide (OCUTG). The agreements tend to be very specific between one university and one college. This style of transfer agreement differs from articulated systems such as those in British Columbia and Alberta.
The Honourable Bob Rae's 2005 report, Ontario: A Leader in Learning, makes the most recent call for improvements to student mobility and institutional cooperation. Following government endorsement of the Rae Report, in 2011 the CUCC evolved into the Ontario Council on Articulation and Transfer (ONCAT), which has assumed jurisdiction over the OCUTG; now known as the Ontario Postsecondary Transfer Guide (OPTG).
In a recent study of student perspectives of postsecondary mobility in Ontario published in the Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education Professional File, PhD. candidate Christine Arnold writes, "Transfer pathways have progressed significantly in the province over the last five years (College-University Consortium Council, 2007); resources and sources for transfer currently do not match this level of care."