First Nations schools short $15M funding

Ottawa lags behind provincial level, vows to make up shortfall

Ottawa is shortchanging First Nations schools in Alberta $15 million a year compared with similar provincial schools, says a new joint study by provincial, federal and First Nations staff.

The numbers came out during a Journal analysis that also found an average 39 per cent of children and young adults on reserves across the province are taking a pass on school altogether.

The federal government and most First Nations reserves do not track the number of students who are not enrolled in school. But if the academic roll call, graduation lists and data from the national Indian Registry are compared, more than 11,000 students between the ages of four and 21 are shown to be missing, revealing a large and growing uneducated population in the province.

Ottawa spends $244 million a year on kindergarten-to-Grade 12 education in Alberta. That would rise to $259 million a year if Ottawa committed to funding First Nations schools at the same level provincial schools are funded.

And if First Nations students started to attend school at the same rates seen throughout the rest of Alberta, that extra $15 million needed annually would climb to $45 million a year, said Al Rollins, one of the report’s authors and CEO of Kee Tas Kee Now Tribal Council.

The report compared funding between each First Nations school and the closest provincial school, since schools are funded through a variety of per-school and per-student grants that are sometimes location-based.

It was sent to Ottawa this spring, but won’t be released publicly until fall, when recommendations from several working groups under the 2010 memorandum of understanding for First Nations education are released.

Aboriginal leaders argue their schools have been underfunded for years, a situation continually deteriorating under a two-per-cent cap on annual increases mandated in 1996. Reached in Ottawa, federal Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan said the government is committed to funding First Nations schools at the same level as provincial schools and may allocate some of the additional $100 million promised in the 2012 budget over three years.

“Through negotiations, we want to do that; that’s exactly what we did in British Columbia, and it was similar numbers,” Duncan said.

He was referring to a January agreement that commits Ottawa to equal funding in B.C. starting this fall.

“We would like to move toward a stable, predictable multi-year funding arrangement that would work for everybody, but we’re quite prepared to do it regionally or provincially.

“If the capacity is there, and there is a vision for how to get to second- and third-level services, we’re quite prepared to make it happen,” he said, without giving a timeline for improvements in Alberta.

Second- and third-level services include teacher training and recruitment, curriculum development, governance oversight and other help normally provided by school boards and provincial education departments.

In Alberta, First Nations-run schools operate largely without those services, with each band trying to run the school on its own.

Duncan said the federal goal is to work through provincial or regional agreements to set up First Nations-run agencies that can provide curriculum support and other help to the schools.

The additional $100 million promised over three years in the budget is meant to improve basic literacy and math skills, but is largely unallocated so far.

It can also address funding gaps such as the one in Alberta, he said.

The budget also reiterates a commitment to a First Nations Education Act, needed since the current Indian Act includes “archaic” references to truancy and residential schools and little else.

The act will focus more on improving schools than forcing children into them, Duncan said.

“I don’t think enforcement is very realistic.

“I don’t think it would work in the public system either, to be honest.”