First Nations Technical Institute funding cut by Harper government threatens its operation
The following three stories highlight the struggle facing First Nation post-secondary institutions. Please consider writing to your MP and MPP about this injustice and signing their online petition available at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/FNTI/index.html
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Aboriginal college dealt financial blow
KATE HARRIES - January 30, 2008
An Ontario college hailed as a pioneer in delivering postsecondary education to aboriginal students has been placed in jeopardy by a federal-provincial dispute over funding.
The First Nations Technical Institute has awarded university degrees and college diplomas to more than 2,000 aboriginal students since it was founded in 1985 by the Tyendinaga Mohawk Council with funding from the federal and provincial governments.
Now the federal Department of Indian Affairs is cutting its per-student contribution from $3,846 to $1,333 and institute president Tim Thompson says he may have to start handing out layoff notices to staff next week to prepare for the cutback in funding.
Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl has advised the 23-year-old institute, located on the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory near Belleville, Ont., to turn to the private sector and its own alumni for funding.
In a recent letter, Mr. Strahl expressed the hope that the institute's fundraising efforts will meet with success.
"As you are aware, the majority of postsecondary institutions have private-sector support, as well as alumni support, to offset the rising costs of postsecondary education," Mr. Strahl wrote to New Democratic aboriginal affairs critic Jean Crowther.
"It's a bit callous," Mr. Thompson said, "telling us to access private money 'while we treat you unfairly.' " Aboriginal students at the institute are funded at one-fifth or less the amount that mainstream students get, he said.
The institute, with 300 students this year, delivers its programs through partnerships with Queen's, Ryerson and Trent universities, and Loyalist, Humber, St. Lawrence and Canadore colleges.
The institute has about 60 full- and part-time staff, some at Tyendinaga, others on contract around the province. It "indigenizes" its courses and has gained international recognition for development of a "prior-learning assessment" system that recognizes knowledge gained through life and work experience.
Many students hold down jobs while completing their education through a combination of distance learning and intensive four-day sessions at a campus near their community.
Some programs, including the separately funded three-year aviation course, are full-time residential. A mentoring system helps keep an isolated student in a remote northern community connected. The result, Mr. Thompson said, is a 91-per-cent retention rate of students who enroll, and a 90-per-cent graduate employment rate.
The support made all the difference, said Tanya King-Maracle, 37, married and mother of two. She graduated last year in public administration and governance with the highest grade-point average in Ryerson University's faculty of arts. Now she's heading an education project at Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte while working on a master's degree at Queen's - which she said she will have to give up if the institute closes.
"When something's in place, it's working and it's threatened, it's just frustrating," she said.
Indian Affairs, noting that postsecondary education is a provincial responsibility, is slashing its previous commitment of $1.5-million a year by 66 per cent in April, on top of a 25- per-cent cutback in 2006-2007.
The institute receives $1,677 per student from the province - a fraction of the $6,500 to $8,200 that the province pays per mainstream student. "The inequities from the financial perspective are clear and what we're seeking is equity - that preserves our distinctiveness and those things that make us successful," Mr. Thompson said.
The provincial contribution, to total $1,671,000 next year, goes to partner institutions. The province will not fund the institute directly because it views native-directed institutions as a federal responsibility.
The problem is that neither level is able to recognize an indigenous institution, he said.
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From the Belleville Intelligencer ...
Silence suggests double standard
Re: Letter, Native Funding Embarrassing - Jan. 26.
Lesley Forrester is right to suggest that we should all be ashamed at the unjust treatment of aboriginal people. For governments to allow the First Nations Technical Institute to close due to lack of funding is unconscionable.
This school represents the best opportunity for aboriginal Canadians to attain higher education. Consider the outcry, locally, over the potential closure of some public schools, and the silence over FNTI funding shortfalls becomes deafening. That there exists a race-based double standard becomes obvious.
Throughout my 60 years I have often observed a Canadian penchant for looking south of the border and criticizing the treatment of their non-white citizens. We should spend more time looking closer to home. Canadians are equally guilty of discrimination, we just prefer not to talk about it.
With barely any notice or objection, we have allowed our aboriginal peoples to suffer the abuses of residential schools, which utterly destroyed individuals and families for several generations. Now, when aboriginals have shown a real desire to help themselves through higher education, we are willing to remain silent as yet another government destroys their hopes for a better future.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best when he stated "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamour of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people." Failure to speak in protest over this unjust treatment leaves us as guilty as those who actually refuse the funding necessary for FNTI to continue doing its very important work.
Orland Kennedy
Belleville
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From the Belleville Intelligencer ...
FNTI fights on for funds
Posted By Stephen Petrick - January 30, 2006
First Nations Technical Institute officials are still waiting for senior governments to solve a serious funding crunch, but say they hope to make some progress today.
President Tim Thompson was to meet with provincial politicians in Kingston this morning to make a case for the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory-based school, at risk of closure due to a 66 per cent federal funding cut.
Today's meeting is a pre-budget hearing with the Ontario Standing Committee of Finance and Economic Affairs, scheduled for 9 a.m. at the Ambassador Conference Resort.
Thompson plans on telling the nine MPPs who make up the committee that funding FNTI students to the same level as all others in Ontario should be the first step towards a new funding formula that can keep the school afloat.
Currently, students at the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory-based institute are funded at one fifth the rate of those at other colleges and universities.
"(The meeting) will be about the need for equity," Thompson told The Intelligencer Monday. "There's a benign neglect occurring here. People recognize the good work that takes place at FNTI but nothing gets done to make sure it continues."
FNTI is an aboriginal-owned and operated school that serves roughly 300 students from across Canada every year. They enroll in courses linked with Ontario colleges and universities, most with the intention of learning new skills they can take back to their parent communities.
But since its inception in 1985 a long-term funding formula has never been put in place by either the provincial or federal government.
The province has argued that a native-run institution should be a federal responsibility, while the federal government has argued that a post-secondary institution is a provincial responsibility.
But if neither side commits more funding by the end of March, Thompson said the school will have to consider cancelling classes next year.
And Thomson expressed frustration over how little progress has been made over the last several months.
He said a long-awaited meeting with then-Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Chris Bentley in August "wasn't fruitful. "Mr. Bently took the position that as an institute on a reserve we're a federal responsibility so any of the issues we have on accreditation or access to other sources were discounted," Thompson said. "Perhaps the Minister of the day had a bad morning, because it was a disappointing meeting."
Since the October election, Thompson said he's also requested meetings with the new Minister John Milloy, but so far they've gone unfulfilled.
He's also still waiting to hear from local MPP Leona Dombrowsky and local MP Daryl Kramp after both told The Intelligencer last week that they'd like to meet with the school soon.
While advocates for the school say it's important to lobby both governments for a solution, they're now pressing the provincial government more than ever before in light of federal cutbacks.
Lu Ann Hill, head of the Aboriginal Institutes Consortium, said all eight Ontario First Nations post-secondary institutions for which she lobbies, including FNTI, struggle with funding year-to-year.
She's trying to convince the province that funding them better will improve the economy of the province.
"We have a whole lot of First Nations people in Ontario and if those people are not educated, where are they? Can they get good jobs? And does this not affect Ontario's economy?," she said. "I think it does."
But when informed of the Consortium's stance, Dombrowsky maintained the funding of native schools remains a federal role.
"If the federal government hadn't cut funds would we be even having this conversation?" she asked.
She said she expressed concern about the issue to Kramp in a conversation recently, but suggested that arranging a meeting should be his responsibility.
Kramp was attending meetings in Ottawa Monday and couldn't be reached for comment, but his legislative assistant, Jessica Maga, assured the meeting with FNTI is still in the works.
"Getting three busy bureaucracies together is difficult," she said.