Government receives education on improving education

By January, the federal government will have three more reports to look at when considering changes to First Nations primary and secondary education.

Gilbert Whiteduck, spokesperson for the three First Nations organizations that wrote the Report on Priority Actions in View of Improving First Nations Education, isn’t confident, however, that their 87-page report with its 20 recommendations will get the same consideration as the other two.

“I don’t think it will because the (national education panel) had so much hype in its launching. The fact that it was fully endorsed by the (Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Canada) minister, so obviously the minister will try to get as much mileage as he can out of it… He (Minister John Duncan) has put in over $2 million into this process,” said Whiteduck, chief of the Kitigan Zibi First Nation.

The Priority Actions report was jointly presented by the First Nations Education Council of Quebec, the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, and the Nishnawbe Aski Nation of Ontario to the Assembly of First Nations. All three organizations opted out of the work undertaken by the national education panel, expressing concern with its independence from federal government influence.

The education panel was a joint AFN/Aboriginal Affairs initiative launched last June. The panel’s report was tabled with both bodies at the end of December.

The Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples delivered its report on educational reform in early December. Reforming First Nations Education: From Crisis to Hope is the result of hearings held throughout the country beginning in early 2010. The committee has made four recommendations centring around the development of a First Nations Education Act.

Both reports that have been tabled so far have called for changes to the way First Nations education is funded and for First Nations to be in control of developing and delivering education.

Scott Haldane, chair of the national education panel, said these are recommendations that the panel has also heard throughout its sitting. The education panel held eight regional events and a national event in late 2011.
“We have heard the importance of communities taking ownership of not only the delivery of First Nations education but also the challenges associated with that,” said Haldane.

Secondary and tertiary supports, such as funding for the delivery of social and health programs, were also pitched strongly as what First Nations need to help students stay in school, he added.

That all three reports could come up with similar recommendations is not a surprise to Whiteduck. He noted that the Priority Actions report pulled together recommendations that came from existing reports, including “major studies” already undertaken by all three partner organizations.

The 20 recommendations that Priority Actions settled on have seven that focus on funding and 13 that deal with jurisdictional issues.

“What we’re asking as First Nations,” said Whiteduck, “is to fully endorse and support First Nations control of First Nations education.”

Although Whiteduck is hopeful that changes will take place, he is wary of past and present government action.
“Again it appears to us that the department of Aboriginal Affairs and government in general seems to know what is best for us,” he said.

AFN National Chief Shawn Atleo said the AFN insisted on having the national education panel’s report presented separately to AFN and the federal government for that very reason.

“It’s a matter of whether governments would be willing to work jointly with First Nations to recognize the value and need for a greater level of independence and fairness, and so that’s the reason why we insisted on the education panel that the report come both back to us as First Nations, and separately to the minister,” said Atleo.
Whiteduck said that First Nations are not asking for anything “beyond the reasonable” when it comes to improvement in the education system.

“This is really an all hands on deck effort to see some significant transformation in the area of education but that it be grounded firmly in our rights and our treaties and that it really transforms the relationship between First Nations and the government,” said Atleo.