AFN National Chief writes about the importance of investing in First Nation youth
Education funding vital for native youth
Providing for a college or university education is never easy. Families must cope with the ever-rising costs of tuition, books and student housing. It’s an ongoing challenge for many of us.
Fortunately, a federal program – the Post-Secondary Student Support Program (PSSSP) – has helped many First Nations students break free from customary paths of unemployment and graduate to develop successful careers.
We can easily see the results of this program. In 1963, only three First Nations students graduated with a post-secondary degree. By 2006, more than 132,000 post-secondary students graduated – many of whom were the first in their families to do so.
For sure, this effort needs to be strategized carefully as access to funding is not the only factor contributing to this success. Residential schools began closing while a number of First Nations schools opened on-reserve, improving the quality of early education and generating a cohort of high-school graduates who would be prepared to move on to the post-secondary level. But certainly, access to funding support was vital in supporting students whose families had few means of saving for post-secondary education.
Despite this success, the reality is that more support is needed. Only 7.1 per cent of First Nations graduate university, compared with 24 per cent of their non-native peers. To close this gap, we’d need to see 65,000 more First Nations students holding diplomas and degrees.
The good news is that more than 80 per cent of First Nations youth want to pursue a higher education. They believe education will help them advance the goals of their communities and enable them to better support their families. Affordability remains the main barrier. In fact, many First Nations are forced to delay or decline post-secondary education because they are already financially supporting their families.
Although most First Nations youth want to go to college or university, funding sources like the PSSSP are inadequate to keep up with demand. The PSSSP program has been capped for more than a decade at a time of rapidly increasing tuition levels, meaning that fewer students have access each year. In the first half of this decade, more than 10,000 students who might have become entrepreneurs, health-care providers or skilled labourers, have had their dreams delayed or denied at a great cost to our communities and to Canada.
Economists tell us that two-thirds of all job openings over the next 10 years will require post-secondary education, and they also predict that Canada will not have enough skilled workers to meet this need. Meanwhile, First Nations youth, the fastest growing population in Canada, are eager to get an education and launch their careers, but the financial support is not available.
What we must do is obvious.
We must invest in education now – and give First Nations youth an opportunity to fill these jobs. According to the Canadian Centre for Living Standards, doing so would add $179 billion to Canada’s economy by 2026. That’s a sound investment with a promising return for everyone.
Funding sources such as PSSSP need improvement and need increased investment. Canada’s auditor general has said that the Department of Indian Affairs’ administration of PSSSP can and must be improved. Several of the more than 22 studies on First Nations education penned since 1999 have identified the need for greater investment in PSSSP.
In this week’s upcoming budget, consideration must be given to the most effective way to support First Nations youth. Now is not the time to reduce or eliminate these vital sources of support for our students. Rather, it is a time to bolster and strengthen programs reinforcing the critical role of First Nations communities in supporting, mentoring and encouraging their students to grow and to learn. In turn, this enables the students to be part of building their communities and economies, and the economy of Canada.
Lastly, investment in education and enhancing the post-secondary student support program is an important part of overcoming the shameful legacy of the residential school era. Our communities need the ideas, vitality and innovation that our youth contribute when they complete their education – and so does Canada.
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Natives 'expecting to hear the worst' as Ottawa eyes education fund - Government reviews post-secondary program as budget looms and chiefs trumped need for more funding
Ottawa — The Canadian Press - Feb. 24, 2010
The federal government is reviewing its funding for First Nations post-secondary education at the very time when chiefs across the country have made such funding their single top priority.
Ottawa has been spending about $300-million a year on the Post-Secondary Student Support Program. The funding helped 22,000 First Nations students to pay for tuition, travel to university or college, and living expenses in 2008.
Sources say next week's federal budget won't be all bad news for First Nations education. But the post-secondary scheme as it stands now raises all sorts of red flags for the Conservatives, who are aiming to eradicate a $56-billion deficit.
The program, run by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, has been under scrutiny since an internal audit last year warned that the money was not being properly tracked or fairly handed out.
Nor was it adequately financed.
The money used to be sufficient to fund 30,000 students a year but that number has dwindled, even as the First Nations population bulges.
“The funding authorities currently in use, coupled with the limited tracking of how funds are spent, do not support the sound stewardship of Program funds,” the audit concluded.
Accountability has come to the fore recently at the First Nations University in Saskatchewan. Federal and provincial governments halted their funding for the institution because of allegations of financial mismanagement.
At the same time, Indian Affairs has been undergoing a government-ordered strategic review aimed at identifying programs that can be cut so the money can be saved or reallocated.
So First Nations communities are concerned that the program will be swept away into some other less-focused initiative, handed off to a third party with few links to aboriginal communities, turned into loans, or simply cut to the bone – all in the name of improving accountability and saving money.
“I'm expecting to hear the worst,” said Angus Toulouse, the Assembly of First Nations' regional chief for Ontario.
The review of the key federal support for post-secondary education among First Nations comes at an awkward time. While the post-secondary program raises troubling accountability issues for the federal Conservatives, there's a growing consensus that education for First Nations is more important than ever.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has underlined the need for better education for First Nations.
“We want to ensure that all First Nations and Inuit learners have access to education that encourages them to stay in school, to graduate, and gives them the skills they need to enter the labour market,” said a spokeswoman for Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl.
And the Assembly of First Nations has found some rare unanimity among its chiefs that education should be the single top policy priority for federal and provincial funding.
In its pre-budget lobby to Ottawa, the AFN jettisoned its wider, long-standing pleas for funding for social housing, health care and infrastructure to focus solely on a sharply defined goal to improve schooling.
In particular, in a pitch laced with Conservative-friendly buzzwords such as “innovation,” “productivity” and “strategic investment,” AFN National Chief Shawn Atleo says Ottawa should commit to producing at least 65,000 more post-secondary graduates and building at least 60 new schools within five years.
Funding of about $500-million a year – $180-million for capital investment and the rest for topping up the post-secondary support program – could close the education gap between First Nations and the rest of the population at a time when the Canadian work force is poised to be hungry for skilled labour, Mr. Atleo points out.
“We have to bring some reality to the picture and turn the conversation to investments and contributions to the economy,” he said in an interview. “This can't be any more about just a relationship for funding to achieve some minimal or nominal progress.”
He said the money should not just come from Ottawa, though. The private sector and provincial governments would also find it in their best interests to get involved, he insisted.
But his arguments come as Ottawa is warning that no new funding will be approved in next week's budget. Indeed, senior officials say they want to slow the rate of spending growth, and have warned of cuts in some areas.
The government is also preparing to take full advantage of its continuing strategic review of spending. Every year, a quarter of the government's organizations are told to look over their costs and earmark five per cent for re-allocation elsewhere.
In the past two years, however, the government has only re-allocated about 2.5 per cent of the targeted funding, rather than five per cent. This year is expected to be different, although the details will not be released until the budget is tabled next week.
Indian and Northern Affairs is on the list for review this year. But with the Prime Minister's focus on Arctic sovereignty, programs for the North are largely believed to be safe – putting the pressure on program spending for First Nations.
The AFN argues that post-secondary education is important enough to be the recipient of re-allocated funding, and not the target.
About $8.5-million in annual core funding for national aboriginal organizations – such as the Assembly of First Nations, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and the Native Women's Association – is also in play.