Report on poor First Nation high school graduation rates - need regional boards
From http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2006/12/07/aboriginal-education.html
Most aboriginal youth not finishing high school: analyst
Thursday, December 7, 2006 - CBC News
Seventy per cent of young aboriginal adults living on Manitoba reserves have not completed high school — the highest dropout rate among on-reserve youth in Canada, a senior analyst said Thursday.
In a report released in October, Michael Mendelson, senior scholar with the Caledon Institute of Social Policy in Ottawa, found the problem extends across the country, but is especially acute in Manitoba.
"Aboriginal people, particularly on reserve, are failing to complete high school. Not only failing to go on to post-secondary education, but not even getting through high school," Mendelson said Thursday.
"About 70 per cent of young adults on reserve do not complete high school in Manitoba. That's the highest rate on reserve in any province."
Mendelson's research also found that nearly 50 per cent of young aboriginal adults in Winnipeg haven't finished high school. Overall, he said, aboriginal education should be one of the most serious issues facing the province today.
Economic repercussions
"How can a province like Manitoba be prosperous economically if 10 to 15 per cent of its labour force essentially can only be employed at very low skilled jobs that don't even require a high school graduation?" he said.
"There's fewer and fewer of those jobs all the time. Both socially and economically, this is kind of [a] long-term tsunami that's facing Manitoba."
Mendelson said he believes part of the problem is that reserves do not have educational supports, or even a school system. As well, remote communities do not have curriculum development, teacher evaluation or superintendents, he said.
As part of the solution, Mendelson said the federal government should create a new national education act to allow First Nations to create their own school boards and systems.
Related Links:
Low aboriginal graduation rates a concern for all Canadians: report - http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2006/08/10/aboriginal-graduates.html
Caledon Institute of Social Policy: Read the report - Improving Primary and Secondary Education on Reserves in Canada
Michael Mendelson, October 2006 - http://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/PDF/608ENG%2Epdf
In his report Aboriginal Peoples and Postsecondary Education in Canada (Caledon Institute of Social Policy, July 2006), Michael Mendelson found that a very high percentage of Aboriginal students were not completing high school, especially those who lived on reserve. In this commentary, Mendelson sets out proposals for improving primary and secondary education for residents of reserves. He argues that many reserve schools are organized on the ‘village school’ model that prevailed in rural Canada before the creation of modern consolidated school boards. He argues for the creation of a First Nations-owned and -controlled school system. Mendelson proposes that a First National Education Act replace the current education sections of the Indian Act to provide a legal framework enabling the evolution of First Nations school boards that reflect the characteristics of each region.