"Improving Education on Reserves: A First Nations Education Authority Act" - a research paper
Caledon Institute releases paper on improving education on reserves
Posted July 3, 2008
The Caledon Institute of Social Policy announced the release of
"Improving Education on Reserves: A First Nations Education Authority Act"
by Michael Mendelson.
A decade ago, the 1996 Census found that approximately 60 percent of First Nation on-reserve residents aged 20 to 24 had not completed high school. The 2006 Census results are unchanged: approximately 60 percent of First Nation on-reserve residents aged 20 to 24 still have not completed high school. The explanations for the lack of educational progress are several, ranging from the history of colonialism and forced assimilation through residential schools to the prevalence of poverty. On reserve, these factors are often compounded by an inadequate school system. The current on-reserve school system resembles village schools with none of the supports offered by modern school boards and provincial departments of education. Financing is unrelated to educational needs.
This paper recommends a new legal framework to encourage for First Nations the equivalent of the school consolidation movement that swept rural Canada many years ago. It describes a new federal statute which would enable reserves to join together to form First Nations Educational Authorities and establish regional First Nations equivalents of education departments under First Nations control, while setting out the mutual responsibilities for education of both First Nations and the federal government.
The link below is the paper (PDF - 23 pages).
http://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/PDF/684ENG.pdf
"Improving educational outcomes on reserve is not an easy task with some simple, instant one-size-fits-all solution. The education system for residents on reserve faces daunting challenges, mainly stemming from the use of education as an instrument of oppression in our notso-distant history. Until the release of Indian Control of Indian Education by the National Indian Brotherhood (now the Assembly of First Nations) in 1972, First Nations education remained firmly under the control of governments and religious institutions. Education was wielded as one of the main weapons in a centuries-old war on First Nations’ culture and language." (page 3)