A collegiate institute is an institution that provides either secondary or post-secondary education, dependent on where the term is used. In Canada, the term is used to describe an institutions that provide secondary education, while the word is used to describe a post-secondary institutions in the United States. The term has fallen out of use throughout most of North America, except in the Canadian province of Ontario, which continues to use the term in the names of their secondary schools. Variations of the term also see use in other parts of Canada, with select areas of western Canada using the term collegiate in the names of their secondary schools. Canada The term collegiate institute originally referred to a distinct type of secondary school in several provinces in Canada. However, the term has since transformed as a synonym for an institution that provides secondary education. The term is most prominent in Ontario, although the term was also used in several other areas in Canada. Ontario In Ontario, collegiate institute originally referred to a distinct type of secondary school within the province's parallel streams of secondary education. The parallel school system was not extended to the separate school systems in Ontario. After the parallel streams were merged into one stream, the term continues to see use in Ontario, used to refer to any secular public institution that provides secondary education. In 1871, the province of Ontario set up two parallel secondary education systems that included collegiate institutes and high school. Collegiate institutes offered education in the arts, classics, and the humanities, including Greek and Latin, for university-bound students. Conversely, high school referred to secondary institutions that offered vocational and science programs for those planning to enter the workforce upon graduation. While the parallel school system was in place, secondary institutions could only be elevated to the status of a collegiate institutes when it reached the prescribed number of teachers, and students; and when it fully complies with the standards set the Department of Education (renamed the Ministry of Education in 1972). Galt Collegiate and Vocational Institute was the first secondary institution elevated to a collegiate institute, in 1871. It was quite quickly realized that the division did not work very well. Over time, high schools responded to students' needs and increasingly offered the arts courses that were essential for the workforce. At the same time, as universities began teaching science and engineering,