First Nations lobbying candidates to address funding shortfalls for First Nation schools and education
First Nations are holding an important demonstration to denounce the scandalous under-funding of their education
WENDAKE, QC, Sept. 10 /CNW Telbec/ - The First Nations Education Council
(FNEC) invites media representatives to an important demonstration being held to denounce the scandalous under-funding of First Nations education and to call on the federal political parties for action. More than 300 people, parents, children and chiefs from the different First Nations in Quebec are expected to be at the headquarters of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada in Gatineau, to demand a direct response and firm commitments in order to remedy this situation.
WHAT:
Important demonstration being held by the First Nations of Quebec
WHERE:
Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Terrasses de la Chaudière
10 Wellington Street, North Tower
Gatineau, Quebec
WHEN:
Media briefing
9:30 a.m., Friday, September 12
-30-
For further information: Raymond Sioui, Assistant Director, FNEC, Cell phone: (418) 932-4328; Source: Thanissa Lainé, Communication Agent, FNEC, Cell phone: (418) 932-4351
CLICK HERE FOR A FULL SIZE COPY OF THE RALLY POSTER
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First Nations school funding must improve
September 10, 2008
Count on Indian and Northern Affairs Canada to set up a system that fails to provide any meaningful way to fund education for First Nations schools.
The school operated by the Snuneymuxw First Nation, Qwam Qwum Stalicut School, is now squeezed for space and teachers are not being paid as well as their counterparts in the provincial system.
We saw Prime Minister Stephen Harper stand up in the House of Commons and apologize for the residential school catastrophe, accompanied by high rhetoric about how it's time that First Nations were treated as equals in Confederation, as the Constitution states.
Apparently Harper and INAC Minister Chuck Strahl were more interested in engineering the next election than trying to create a process that would see that schools like Qwam Qwum Stalicut get what they need. The most basic problem faced by Qwam Qwum Stalicut and other First Nations schools is that reviews are done only every five years instead of annually.
By the time the fifth year rolls around many students who would benefit from the review are gone, and there have been so many changes that they cannot be implemented. At Qwam Qwum Stalicut their enrolment in the past four years has gone from 26 to 52. They are jammed into one building and a portable.
The school follows a per-student funding formula of teachers paid for every 16.5 full-time equivalent students. But the reality is they are teaching 40 full time students. That is not acceptable in the provincial system and it's not acceptable as a standard for First Nations students.
Had INAC been doing annual reviews this is a situation that could have been avoided by increasing funding annually to actually keep up with the changes. The current system makes it impossible to improve or maintain standards.
The necessity for INAC to act is very real if the intention of the Constitution and the message arising out of the residential school apology are to mean anything.
While First Nations parents have the option of sending their children into the provincially run public school system (with its own serious problems around funding and space, but that's a different issue) INAC has a very real responsibility to support an educational system run by and for First Nations.
Qwam Qwum Stalicut school has survived in part through funding directly from the Snuneymuxw First Nation. While there's something to be said for a First Nation participating in the funding and curriculum of their own schools, they should not have to be plugging funding holes created by INAC.
The Daily News tried to get answers from INAC's Vancouver office on Tuesday -- about the logic behind the five-year reviews, about addressing the funding and space crunch, about teacher salaries -- and nothing came back in time for our story.
These are not difficult questions. There is only a difficult bureaucracy, the same one that First Nations have to cope with on a daily basis; and have had to cope with since its creation in the 19th century. While there is room for INAC to improve, probably the best improvement would be its abolition and real native self-government.
That is an issue complicated by provinces like B.C., failing miserably to move ahead in the treaty process for the majority of First Nations in the province.
For now the solution has to lie in the next minister of INAC actually doing something. Strahl can add himself to a very long list of ministers who have failed to make any real or effective change that would benefit First Nations.
Every band in this country knows that its best resource are not extracted from the ground. They are sitting in classrooms. And the best solution for them is to have an education system every bit as good as any other.
Let's hope the next government takes First Nations seriously.