It all falls on education - column

In a world where on-reserve schools are funded at levels far less then off-reserve schools there is a constant state of crisis at the offices of Aboriginal education authorities.
The crisis is often mistakenly referred to as a ‘challenge’ and that challenge is to offer the same level of education for on-reserve students when the school has about twenty percent less resources than most other Canadian schools to do so.

What some consider the biggest tragedy of this situation is that the Aboriginal students coming up through these limited education programs truly have the potential to grow into a massive group of invaluable, productive employees as long as their education system keeps up the right pace.

It is a factor that the province and the rest of Canada can no longer afford to ignore or meet with half-measures.

One of the underlying factors is that Aboriginal education is driven by federal funding and federal regulations, while every other school in the country is guided by provincial regulations and funded with provincial resources which are themselves often aided by additional federal spending.  On-reserve schools are governed by rigid spending constraints imposed by the Indian Act which many Aboriginal communities must balance carefully.  From what I’ve seen, the provincial education system is far more flexible and responsive to each school’s needs.
But coming back to my original point is the issue of what short-changing education on-reserve means to the bigger picture of the regional, provincial and national economies.

In Saskatchewan there is a young, healthy and vibrant population with a growing hunger for productivity and progress. One could argue that the pursuit of gainful employment has never been so appealing to Aboriginal youth as it is now.

Training programs and post-secondary institutions are scrambling to fit themselves into what the labour market is demanding them to be.

Fuelling that demand is the immense supply of young Aboriginal people who could be transitioned into the many roles and positions being vacated by a rapidly aging workforce.
As the number of retirees grows each year there is a lack of trained, young, energetic workers to fill the void.

While no one will argue that either education system is perfect or without shortfalls there is still a lot of debate as to how each government involved will create the elusive atmosphere of parity. Parity is the term that some Aboriginal groups use to define their goal of one day being on the same socio-economic level as the rest of Canada.

And while education is only one of many sectors where Aboriginal Canadians fall behind the majority, it is still a very good indicator of how parity may someday be achieved through creative cooperation between governments.

My home community is a very good example of this. Flying Dust First Nation Education operates in partnership with the Northwest School Division and its schools where Flying Dust’s students attend Grades five to twelve.
Added to the partnership is the Office of Education run by the Meadow Lake Tribal Council working on behalf of the nine communities that make up MLTC. 

Between the three parties there is an atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation. There is representation from numerous federal and provincial and regional education authorities working from inside and outside the many fine schools in our area. 

And while it is almost impossible to truly harmonize the different jurisdictions and different levels of resources, the fact that we can all sit at the same table from time to time and address the issues that ALL our students are facing speaks to the cooperative attitude of all educators.  
And regardless if all the groups meet twice a month or twice a year it seems that we all follow the same star and we are all working to make an imperfect situation better for the students who trust us to give them the education they need to succeed.