More input in education needed

Grand Chief Stan Beardy said a legislated base with some First Nations control is needed to improve First Nations education after the provincial government brought up the issue in the Nov. 22 Speech from the Throne.
“The federal delivery of education on-reserve is not legislated-based, so you don’t have a minimum, you don’t have standards,” Beardy said after the Nov. 22-24 Nishnawbe Aski Nation Special Chiefs Assembly. “It’s almost ad hoc in delivering that education because it is delivered without a policy.”
Beardy brought up former auditor general Sheila Fraser’s report on First Nations education in the 2011 June Status Report of the Auditor General of Canada, which stated that the education gap between First Nations living on reserves and the general Canadian population has widened.
Based on 2001 and 2006 census data, the report stated the education gap has not been reduced and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (now Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada) has only begun to implement a strategy for closing it.
The report also stated the proportion of high school graduates over the age of 15 is 41 per cent among First Nations members living on reserves compared with 77 per cent for Canadians as a whole. In 2004, the Auditor General noted that at existing rates, it would take 28 years for First Nations communities to reach the national average. More recent trends suggest that the time needed may be longer.
The provincial government said during the Speech from the Throne that it will continue to call on the federal government to work with First Nations, other Aboriginal partners and the province to improve education supports for Aboriginal students.
“What we need is greater input in the design of that education system by our own experts,” Beardy said, noting that while the Maori in New Zealand are “very well educated,” their values and principles in regards to their culture and language have gone up along with their educational attainment. “We cannot have that perception as First Nations people that if our people get well educated, it’s at the expense of their cultural identity. As First Nations people get higher learning, then their cultural identity gets reinforced at the same time.”