DOUG CUTHAND
The prime minister’s announcement on First Nations education was full of pomp and ceremony but signified very little.
Education has always played an important role in my family. My dad went to teachers college in Saskatoon. My mother, too, was a teacher.
Dad began his career as an Anglican minister and ended up as the head of the department of native studies at the University of Manitoba. Today, my son is the vice-principal of a school on an Alberta First Nation. When I remarked once that brains tend to skip a generation, he said, “Too bad for you.”
The importance of education for our people cannot be over-stressed. Once we have the degree, certificate or ticket in whatever profession we choose, the horizon lifts and the possibilities open up. Life becomes a joy and we can realize our dreams.
Therefore Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s announcement last week on First Nations education was greeted with much anticipation. Unfortunately, the announcement was full of pomp and ceremony but signified very little. This agreement is basically the old agreement, with the carrot of funding two years in the future.
The agreement makes $500 million available for capital over a seven-year period, starting in 2015. That works out to a little over $70 million per year. With the average school costing between $20 million and $30 million, that means nationally only a few schools can be built each year.
In his report on First Nations education in 2009, former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page pointed out that First Nations were underfunded between $169 million to $189 million annually in education capital needs. Not only were they underfunded, but about $20 million from the Aboriginal Affairs Department was redirected annually to other programs.
Harper’s recent statement also included an increase in operating grants for education of $1.2 billion over three years, starting in 2016. That works out to $400 million annually for a national program that includes more than 800 schools.
FSIN Vice-Chief Bobby Cameron stated that, based on provincial funding formulas, there is a $335 million shortfall nationally this year in First Nations education funding. The money is needed now, and not two years from now.
Education programs run on a fiscal year that ends in July, so we won’t see additional education funding until September 2016. By then, the First Nations student population may have grown by another 10 per cent or 15 per cent, so the new funding is locked in at an amount that may well be inadequate.
When the federal budget was announced on Tuesday, there was no mention of any immediate increases in the K-12 education budget. Would it kill them to increase First Nations education funding this year?
While the news media reported the announcement as groundbreaking, I saw it as a strange announcement. The event was tightly controlled at Kainai High School on the Blood Reserve in southern Alberta. Security was strict, and one young woman who was caught texting was thrown out.
The prime minister has stated that First Nations will have control over their children’s education, and the legislation has been rebranded as The First Nations Control of First Nations Education Act. But in the same breath, Harper said that teachers on reserves will have to be provincially certified, and students must attend regularly.
In other words, they said, “You have control, but we insist on holding your hand.”
By way of a reality check, the First Nations have teacher accreditation at the First Nations University of Canada, the University of Regina and the University of Saskatchewan, so I don’t see why there’s a problem with accreditation. Was this statement thrown out just to make us look like amateurs?
The real problem is that because of federal underfunding, turnover is high because teachers are paid less on reserves, where resources are also limited. The challenge is to hire good teachers and retain them. Accreditation is a red herring.
According to the website of the colonial office, the department is currently conducting consultations to make changes to the education act. This is a wrong move. Nothing good ever came from the colonial mindset of the Aboriginal Affairs Department. It is stuck in the 1950s, and refuses to admit that the sun has set on the British Empire.
We need to bring the First Nations/government relationship into a modern context. The revised education act should be drafted by a joint committee of First Nations and federal government specialists, leaving the colonial office out of it. This way the new education act could be brought to Parliament with the stamp of approval from the First Nations, and subsequently get all-party support. We should not become a partisan football to be kicked around the House of Commons.
Education is our ticket to a better future, which will lead to a better future for the provinces and country as a whole. We don’t have two years to waste, because the need is now.