Economic impact of Aboriginal education undeniable

It is disheartening for Lisa Wilson to admit that economics may take precedence over social justice when it comes to government investment in education for Aboriginal people. But she will use whatever information she needs to in order to see positive changes occur.

“As a person who really strongly believes in equity and social justice and we’re coming from that background, of course that is how I personally would prefer to look at the situation, but I think … it’s time we have to make this other argument,” said Wilson, director with the Gabriel Dumont Institute.

The GDI hired Eric Howe, an economist with the University of Saskatchewan, to look at Aboriginal education in terms of monetary value and in a way that would resonate with those who make policy and funding decisions.

“I understand people’s frustrations sometimes for wanting something to be done for the sake of other motives than cash. But I’ve seen that time and time again, it’s the cash argument that usually carries the day,” said Howe, who added he has been doing economic impact analysis for a long time.

The result of Howe’s year-long analysis is Bridging the Aboriginal Education Gap in Saskatchewan, in which Howe claimed that taking individual monetary, non-monetary and social benefits into consideration, bridging the education gap would see a total social benefit of $90 billion.

“There are all sorts of reasons to pursue Aboriginal education…simply looking at the bottom line, it’s worth a big pile of money to us,” said Howe.

He said that non-Aboriginal people in Saskatchewan may not be interested in making changes to education based on treaty rights, but saying, “You could make money from this, they pay attention,” could be the difference.

 “To hear an economist say if we don’t get it together in this province and start providing enough education for Aboriginal people to harness that kind of income and revenue for the province, if we don’t get this together and do that, he has actually said that we are looking at … a social disaster we haven’t seen since the Great Depression,” said Wilson.

Wilson understands the value of educating Aboriginal people, not only in financial terms but also in social terms. For the past 30 years, GDI has offered Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program and has graduated over 1,000 students.

“SUNTEP has changed the course of people’s live. You’re breaking a cycle of poverty … you’re moving an entire family into a different sort of an economic category for themselves, a new reality for them and in turn their children come to SUNTEP 20 years down the road,” said Wilson. “The spinoff effect is quite large.”

Howe said SUNTEP is a direct example of the government seeing return for its dollar.

“SUNTEP is a major profit centre of the provincial government. The more money they put into SUNTEP, the more people they have going through that program, the more money they make,” said Howe.

“You’re looking at quite a small investment, relatively speaking, and quite a large return on that investment,” said Wilson.

Wilson noted that Howe’s report clearly indicates that it’s not only about how much money individuals earn with a university degree, but the nonmonetary benefits are enormous.

“It’s not only the benefits they individually accrue but also those benefits that go to society with this number of people having those levels of education,” said Wilson.
Howe said the most alarming part of doing the report was realizing that Aboriginal people did not understand that investment in their education had a direct financial impact on them. Studies show that around the world, Aboriginal people have a higher financial return on education than do non-Aboriginal people.

“The point I really, really want to make, is that education is a money maker,” said Howe. “Politicians, by and large, don’t understand that… Now that we’re into the information age… education is a money maker for government and in particular, Aboriginal education is a money maker for government.”

Both Wilson and Howe want politicians to pay attention to the report, which was tabled in the Legislature.

In a letter to the StarPhoenix, Education Minister Rob Norris noted that his ministry budgeted $46 million to support education and skills development for First Nations and Métis, which represented an increase of over 20 per cent over the previous year.

Norris wrote that the report offered “powerful data on the importance of ensuring more First Nations and Métis students complete high school and succeed in post-secondary studies.”

Wilson said she will be working on keeping “the discussion alive. The process needs to unfold over time. We don’t want the discussion to stop. We want it to be starting.”