Aboriginal drop out rates still high

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The number of Aboriginal students completing high school is still lagging well behind the national average, according to a report released recently by the Caledon Institute of Public Policy.

According to figures contained in Aboriginal Peoples and Postsecondary Education in Canada, which were calculated based on information contained in the 2001 census, approximately 43 per cent of Aboriginal people between the ages of 20 and 24 have not graduated from high school. When just the figures for people living on reserve are considered, that number jumps to 58 per cent. For the Canadian population as a whole, the number of non-high school graduates in the same age range is 16 per cent.

The report shows that, when it comes to graduation from community colleges, the success rate for Aboriginal students is pretty much at par with the general population. According to 2001 statistics, 25 per cent of the Aboriginal population 15 and older had completed a non-university post-secondary education, or PSE. The rate for the general Canadian population in the same age range was 28 per cent.

The report also shows that the success rates of Aboriginal students earning university degrees vary depending on whether those students live on reserve or in an urban setting. For Aboriginal people 15 and older living in cities, the number who have earned university degree is seven per cent. For on reserve students, that number drops to two per cent. But even at seven per cent, the success rate for urban-based Aboriginal students is still less than half that of the general population, which sits at 15 per cent.

While Michael Mendelson, the author of the report, set out to examine the success rates of Aboriginal people within the post-secondary education system, what he found was that the low number of Aboriginal graduates from post-secondary institutions were in great part a result of the low number of Aboriginal students graduating from high school.

"A surprising and important finding in this paper is that Aboriginal high school graduates have about the same probability as anyone else (75 per cent) of graduating with a PSE degree or diploma," Mendelson said. "The problem therefore is the rate of failure to complete high school."

Mendelson makes a number of recommendations regarding changes that can be implemented to increase the number of Aboriginal students graduating from high school. These include setting milestones for improvement of graduation rates, with specific target rates and dates by which those targets must be met, and establishing a way of monitoring to ensure the milestones are achieved.

"The failure to complete high school is the first impediment to increasing PSE attainment ... This is a gathering storm, which will have huge social and economic costs over the next decades. It must be addressed urgently now," Mendelson said. "Everyone loses when Aboriginal students fail to succeed."