First Nations plotting path to improving education
More control over education and long-term, sustainable funding are top priorities for a joint committee established in February to review First Nations education in Canada.
The joint working committee on First Nations education was formed as a stepping stone for the development of a Federal Act for Funding First Nation Education and includes representatives from the Assembly of First Nations chiefs’ committee on education and the National Indian Education Council.
The committee formed several task teams to explore problem areas within First Nations education, which will then be shared with federal government representatives. The teams gave updates on their work during a dialogue and strategy session at the AFN annual general assembly on Wednesday.
While many issues were discussed, money lay at the heart of most of them.
“It’s all about funding,” said Angus Mirasty, former teacher for Lac La Ronge Indian Band. “You can make comparisons (of) First Nations schools to public school systems and to French immersion schools — you look at the huge discrepancy in the money that they’re given.”
He said First Nations students receive approximately half of what off-reserve students do, and that the lack of funding has gotten in the way of trying to revitalize First Nations culture and tradition.
“I strongly believe that there’s a loss of self-identity, no sense of values and a loss (of) parental teachings,” said Mirasty. He believes better funding can help change that.
Bobby Cameron, CCOE chair and chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, emphasized the need for statutory funding to fulfil Indigenous peoples’ inherent and treaty rights to education.
“We … want to ensure that our children and grandchildren ... will be guaranteed funding to meet the needs-based formula,” said Cameron. “To ensure that we give them every opportunity to succeed in life through a quality education.”
He also emphasized the need to incorporate knowledge from elders and traditional Indigenous ways of knowing into First Nations education.
Tyrone McNeil, representative for the Early Childhood Education task team, said working with the current Liberal government to address these issues is all too similar to the way it was with the Harper Conservative government.
“The political machine of this federal government is saying all the right things,” said McNeil. But “at the bureaucratic level they’re still trying to impose more conditions on us, more strings on funding. So the bureaucracy clearly isn’t in line with the political will of this government.”
He said despite the almost $3 billion budgeted for education in the 2016 federal budget, First Nations can only access a small portion of it because of the conditions attached to the money.
“INAC in particular needs to be more accepting and more open to — before money is put on the table — engage us. What are our priorities? And then we can determine what funding is needed … and how that funding is rolled out,” said McNeil.
Both McNeil and Cameron said it is essential that the federal government and First Nations work together to come to a mutual understanding of what changes need to be made to the funding mechanisms as well as control over First Nations education.
“For some reason they’re fearful of shared decision-making,” said McNeil.
The task teams are collecting input from First Nations across Canada to develop draft legislation that is tailored to the needs of each region, instead of a blanket national approach to education that both the committee and the federal government have agreed will not work.