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First of all, good morning, and thank you for the invitation. It's nice to be here. It's nice to talk about a subject that's so close to my work and to some of my passion in my work.
On behalf of Grand Chief Michel, Vice-Chiefs Henderson and Deranger, and the Prince Albert Grand Council, I'd like to say we appreciate being invited to the table on such a topic.
I'd like to start by saying I wish I had the documents in French and English, but it was a short time. I was dealing with schools and their reading programs, and this came up, and I tried to get a jump on it as fast as I could. I wish I could have had it here, but time was tight.
I'm not sure what part of the document is going to be looked at, so maybe just out of courtesy we could stick with the charts, if that would be fine.
I'd like to start by saying that the work you see in front of you is part of a larger project. Three to four years ago at the Prince Albert Grand Council we started taking a look at what we were doing in our schools and making solid decisions and policies and setting direction. To do that, it was important for us to gather data that was reliable from a number of sources: Canada-wide, province-wide, northern Saskatchewan-wide, and then right from our communities themselves.
From that point we looked at K to 12 education, because that's where we were primarily focused at the time and that's where a lot of exciting things are taking place.
As we did that project and we looked at the indicators--the first document--we realized it's very difficult to talk about K to 12 education without that bleeding into post-secondary and into the labour market, because they're all tied together so tightly. When we did this project...we now have three documents. What I'd like to do is go through some of the charts.
When I was given a call the other day, they asked if I could talk about post-secondary education and about some of the factors that are taking place, particularly in our world, in the grand council. What I'd like to do, if it's possible, is just jump to those, because I know I have a short time, and then if you have questions, I'll be more than happy.
So if you would, please, on page 3...oh, we don't have the document.
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Okay, I'll talk through my charts. When we started taking a look at education, first of all, we had to have reliable information about population in those demographics. We gathered population demographics all the way back from 1911 to 2001. In that period of time we found that the Canadian general population grew by 450% and the aboriginal population grew by 930%. From 1991 to 2002 the aboriginal population in Canada grew by 230%. So now we're looking at a significantly large population growth.
More particularly in Saskatchewan, in the last number of years we've seen what's called a boom, bust, and echo. The baby boomers came through and there was a peak in population. It was larger in Canada and slightly smaller in Saskatchewan. That trend reversed about ten to fifteen years later. What we have now is the youth in Saskatchewan between one and fourteen...that peak in population is far surpassing the general Canadian population. Statistics Canada also estimates that in the next eight to ten years there's going to be another boom, and it's going to be particularly in the aboriginal first nations population in northern Saskatchewan communities and in other areas where there are those populations.
I think that was important for us because we had to start taking a look at schools, the capacities, what's needed. When I talk to my chiefs and councils I say, we have students who are fourteen and fifteen years old, and we'll blink our eyes and they're going to be eighteen and nineteen and looking for post-secondary education.
Another interesting demographic in northern Saskatchewan is the changing population. A lot of the population right now between 44 to 65-plus years are the folks who are finishing their careers, deciding what they're going to do when retiring, and some of them are leaving their careers. That's the non-reserve northern population. The Grand Council population is the opposite. On one side, you have the general population that is aging and leaving careers; they've finished their schooling. On the other, we have this large population of aboriginal first nations youth, and there's going to be a need to switch spots in terms of education, in terms of careers. It's a very predominant demographic.
In the Prince Albert Grand Council, probably a little over 30,000 individuals presently make up the membership. From 1994 to 2003, that membership grew by 33%. We're talking about a very large growth in population. Today it's a very young population.
From that point, I'm looking at demographics and population, at how they relate to Canada and to the individuals in the Grand Council. We took a look at educational attainment itself, and again we looked from Canada to Saskatchewan, but I thought I would focus on Saskatchewan while I'm here. What we have today is that 71% of aboriginal individuals have less than a secondary school education, less than a high school education. So we're talking about a large part of that population.
In terms of post-secondary graduates, diplomas, or degrees, that represents 8% of the aboriginal population; 19% have some...which means they're involved in some type of post-secondary program. So we see a large number of individuals with less than a high school education. There is some representation in technical schools, some representation in universities, but those numbers are quite small. Within our own high schools, as we started to focus down, because high school leads into post-secondary education, we found that in 1998-99 we had approximately 42 individuals who graduated from our schools. We have 28 schools in the grand council. You'll be able to see some of that information in the document when it's available. By 2003-04 that number of graduates rose to 184, which indicates there are significant increases taking place.
But it's important to understand that those numbers--although they are positive and show that good things are happening and that students are trying to stay in school to get their grade 12 education--represent a small amount. That year that 184 graduated represented only 19% of the high school young adults--they don't like to be called children.
Our grade 12 classes are small, but once we got them to grade 12, I believe there was a 92% chance of them going on. In 1998, when there were 42 graduates, 34% of the grade 12 class went on. That 34% increased to 92% a number of years later. Once our students get there, they do go on.
As an aside, what is very interesting is that one of the biggest demographics of graduates right now is for females over 21 who have kids. I think it's exciting stuff. You can tell I could talk about this for hours.
We've now started to focus on post-secondary and look at the numbers and programs they were going into. What we found is that from 1977 to 2002-03, there were significant increases in the number of students who received INAC funding. What was also interesting was that those who received funding, I believe it was in 1996-97, actually started to drop off. It decreased by 8%, which is 2,108 individuals. So there were large increases as post-secondary opened up and students started to be involved. From 1977 to 1995, I believe, there was an increase of 415% in post-secondary students receiving INAC funding.
What I find interesting is that we're talking sometimes about small percentages. There is one chart that talks about a decline in student population of I believe 1% or 2%, but that 1% or 2% represents 87 students who struggled with a lot of barriers in the community. They graduated, went up to the band office, and they asked to go to school. They said no. As a teacher and as someone who still works in schools, small percentages represent people. To me, and I know for you as well, it's very disheartening at times.
Another chart in the document takes a look between academic years at the post-secondary level. How did the enrolments increase? How many more went to school or didn't go to school? At its highest point, in 1985, the number of students who went to post-secondary education and received INAC funding increased by 29.6%. The largest decline was minus 4.5% in 2001-02. What's more interesting is that from 1977 to 1995--with the exception of one year where there was what I call a little bleeper, where there was a negative number--there has always been a positive number of enrolments, although they've started to decline.
What we have now at the grand council is a chart that shows that for the last five to six years those numbers have actually started to decline. This means, for example, in some communities, when they get their budget for post-secondary education, it hasn't increased, but the desire to go to post-secondary has. The money is limited, and the opportunity has become limited for our youth.
Within the grand council we also took a look at the graduates--those who have gone on and finished their post-secondary degrees. We also took a look at enrolments. What we found was that in a very short period of time, from 1998 to 2002, there was an increase of 34.5% in enrolment in post-secondary education. Yet within that time, from 2000 to 2002, that same enrolment percentage dropped by 7.2% or 65 students.
Our graduates--they're in the programs--are graduating at a very slow rate, and there are a number of issues that have some influence on that.
When we took a look at post-secondary students and we did surveys with them, we found that one of the critical factors in their world was the price index and how that relates to the cost of living. Generally, the costs of living are 29% higher now than they were in 1990. Also, as we talked about the costs of living, we talked about tuition. What we found was that in Canada, western Canada, and then again particularly in Saskatchewan, tuitions have increased on average by 8.1% a year, while inflation has increased by 1.9%. So the pot of money, the budget that's accessible to our students, has remained the same for a fair number of years. And within that post-secondary support you do get, things cost a lot more today than they did a number of years ago. That's what's also a factor for our students.
There's an interesting piece of information that came from the surveys we did with our post-secondary students. As I said before, one of the largest demographics is females with kids coming back and finishing their grade 12. When we surveyed the post-secondary students, I thought I was going to see concerns mostly around money, books, and tuition. But one of the biggest factors was finding a house--finding a place where they could live, finding a place that was comfortable, clean, safe for their kids, a place with recreation for their kids, a nice school--which I didn't expect. That's some of the information I find as I do this type of research. Sometimes you come across things you never expected would turn up.
But I digress.
As we looked at post-secondary education, we also asked how this relates to the labour market. Hopefully, when you finish your education you have a chance to use it and have a career. So we started to take a look at our communities, and that's the latest document--the labour market--which we did just this summer. What we found is that in our communities there are a fair number of folks who are unemployed. There's a range from location to location. The employment rate on average in our communities is 28%. At the time we did this survey it went as low as 21% and as high as 42%. Most communities, at a 42% employment rate...even that's quite low, I think.
What we found more interesting was some of the work that was shared with us by the Sask Trends Monitor. In our on-reserve communities, as I mentioned before, employment can range from 19% to 21%, depending on whether people commute on and off the reserve to their job site. But what was more alarming for us is that approximately 58% are not in the labour force. They're not working; they're not employed. I'd feel comfortable saying that those are the folks who probably don't have a grade 12. They're the ones who...remember, I said a few minutes ago, they're 18; they blink their eyes and they're 25 now.
I was talking with my director and our coordinators of education. I oversee a principals' group where we bring our 28 principals into our community for a meeting four times a year. During our last meeting there was a conversation that started to take place around the coffee pot. What I found interesting was that the principals were talking about the large number of youth who are 15, 16, 17 years old who are starting to not go to school. There is no employment, and what's the plan? They were talking not necessarily from a focus, as you folks might be today, but about how do we get them back to school, what courses do they have, what courses do they need, and if they're not bound for university, how do we get them into the trades, so that they don't have seasonal work but can have a career?
I've told people a number of times that I wished I had a secret camera because it was such a casual conversation that developed. I found the things they talked about very interesting, especially about doing the work that we have...and in thinking about that young demographic.
The last point I'd like to make is that when we looked at on-reserve in the north, the first nations reserve and the grand council, we took a look at those individuals who had a post-secondary education. We found that among non-reserve in northern Saskatchewan, approximately 40% have post-secondary education, and on the grand council on reserve, it's less than 25%. Again, once the document arrives, there will be more information.
I included the introductions to our post-secondary indicators and to our labour market report from our grand chief. I think those words speak very close to the situation and close to the grand council. What I also did was include the conclusion from our post-secondary report, because it makes a few recommendations at the end. It talks about the situation as it is today, and it also talks about what might be some of the considerations in the future.
In closing, thank you again for the invite. I enjoyed being here. I always enjoy talking about this information. I hope you enjoy the report once it does arrive, and I'll leave it at that.
Thank you.
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Unfortunately, the handout couldn't come out, so I'm just going to try to clarify a couple of pieces of information to pinpoint some of these issues.
The first point you made was that there's a huge population growth--from my understanding, probably Canada's most significant demographic shift in 50 years. Baby boomers are retiring and vacating the labour force, and one of the source populations entering the labour force potentially is aboriginal people. You say this is happening in Saskatchewan, obviously.
Graduation rates out of grade 12 are increasing. You said 92% of the students in grade 12 in 2004 graduated, versus 34% of the students in grade 12 graduating in 1998. That's quite amazing. The flip side to that is that's only about 20% of the total high school population. I think we have to clarify that as well. What percentage of that 80% still live on the reserve? I imagine a large number of them are actually off reserve, and we can't track the other 80%--right?
Another point I think you made on post-secondary enrolment was that enrolment initially increased as funding was made available. As the population increased, the funding flatlined, so we're now starting to see a drop. You can only maintain so long before you start to see a drop in enrolment, and in large part that seems to be due to funding. That's another point perhaps you could clarify.
Another point I'm hearing is that we don't fund adults trying to come back to high school, and we're having to tell them no at the band office or elsewhere...and considering that the women with children, who are more than likely adults, or over the age of 21 in some cases, are the ones with the highest rates of success.
Those are some of the main points I heard in your presentation, as well as some additional information on post-secondary graduation rates, comparing PAGC to non-reserve northern Saskatchewan. I'd like to see those numbers as we go.
I want to put a context behind one statement you made. You said the employment rate in northern Saskatchewan is 28%. The reason you don't use “unemployment” is because in order to be unemployed you actually have to register somewhere, right? What is the employment rate in northern Saskatchewan compared to on-reserve numbers?
I'll leave it at that, those three questions. First, where do you think the other 80% of those high school students are? I'd hate to have people understand that they're all on reserve, and dropouts on reserve, because they're probably off reserve and the number is not as skewed as it looks. Second, concerning the comment on the dropping enrolments into post-secondary, is that related to funding? And third, on the employment rates, define employment versus unemployment in northern Saskatchewan.
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I could speak on behalf of the Prince Albert Grand Council. I'd feel uncomfortable speaking on behalf of the AFN.
To get their attention, I believe you have to look at the numbers honestly, look at the situation of what's taking place and the needs at the community level. To get a government's attention, it would be interesting to look at the roughly 40% of students who do get there. They passed the hurdle of getting their grade 12. They passed the hurdle of getting accepted and getting financial support to go to school. Then at the school they have issues of transportation, cost of living, housing, lack of bridging programs to private counselling, and educational counselling. Putting your kids from Fond du Lac on a plane all the way down to Saskatoon, finding them a place to live and hopefully finding a good school.... As I said before, there is not one factor. To get someone's attention, the best way is to sit down and say, let's honestly take a look at what's taking place.
I don't think another letter or another few sentences I say will make a difference. But in our world, in the grand council, what we did was ask whether it's K to 12 education, post-secondary education, or the labour market? What's taking place with our membership, what is the data that will help drive policy and help drive decision-making—instead of looking at the situation in the school and asking, should we do it? How come? Because it seems like a good idea....
No, let's look at the numbers. How many students are graduating? How many students are needed? How many students are asking for post-secondary education? What are they asking for in the labour market right now?
I had a discussion with Industry Canada a couple of years ago. They said they wanted to have our aboriginal first nations youth from the Prince Albert Grand Council in their employ in SaskTel, SaskEnergy, SaskHighways, but we can't get them because they're not there.
As you said, how do you get someone to notice? Look at it honestly. I'm not saying the people aren't looking at it; I guess I see it a little differently at the grassroots than sometimes people see it from different locations.
I see the students who do graduate from different locations. I see the students who graduate, who come to me and say they want to go to school now. I had a parent phone me in my office--aside from research, I do teacher services, which is like being a superintendent at a school. A mother phoned me from B.C. She adopted a young fellow from Fond du Lac. She said he was 18 and he graduated from high school, and she asked where she would get the money. I asked what she meant. She said he was accepted and was going to school now. I had to explain to her that just because he's treaty and has his grade 12, there is no cheque coming. There is a process of applying, and hopefully there is room for him. That depends upon how many people have applied.
When I talk about grassroots, that's what I mean. How do you get people to notice? We are sitting around talking about it today, so there is a bunch of people noticing.
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On persistence in graduation, yes, we do. In the public school numbers from Saskatchewan education indicators, we find a fairly consistent trend. If students start in year one, in approximately three years they're done.
What we find in our schools in terms of persistence of graduation is that instead of taking three years, it might take four or five or six, because there are a lot of factors involved. But we find that once we do get a child to grade 12, they have a high rate, at least from this time, of graduating.
The other side of that coin, though, is to remember that this 18-year-old or 19-year-old has been working at the school for three, four, five years, and all of a sudden there are other factors that come into place. If you're 20 years old and you're a young man and you have a little baby girl at home, you have to put food on the table. So if you get a chance to get seasonal work, you grab it.
In one of our high schools one spring, the principal phoned me and said, “What are we doing to do? We lost all the students. ” I asked, “What happened?” He said, “It's May and there was a big fire and they all quit because they could get $20-some an hour.” That's bread and better and shoes. He asked, “What are we going to do?” So I phoned the Department of Education and asked whether we could do something. I said I had to have a late writing of this exam. I coordinated when they could all be flown back and we did the exam at the last moment. That's what I mean by grassroots.
So in terms of their persistence, I think some of the students we have are pretty persistent in even going to high school, and especially post-secondary, because with some of the things they go through...I think I'd have a hard time doing it.
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You made mention of studies and careers and sometimes students not completing. Again, I want to make it very clear when I speak with you folks this morning that I want to speak on behalf of our world, that of the grand council. I can't speak for everybody, but I'm thinking that they're going through the same things we are. When you talk about students who do get to post-secondary and maybe not finish, I don't think it's just motivation. I can't see too many of our students who do get past that hurdle of funding and finding that apartment and get going in school saying, “Well, I don't think I really want to be here.” Most of them are pretty excited that they've got to that position. I think that's when those other factors start to come into play--the housing and the costs of living. Those are the factors that count.
You made mention of culture and family. Counselling for students at post-secondary, grade 12, and grade 11 is a very big factor in success. There's not a whole lot of it taking place. Right now—and I'm going off the top of my head—roughly 30% of our high schools in Canada don't get specific funding for a guidance counsellor. And if they have one in their school, they have to find somewhere in the budget that they can get money for that person.
At the post-secondary level, my understanding is that there's not a whole lot of counselling taking place. So for some of our students to come from small communities--away from their family and their culture and their traditions--and move to a city like Saskatoon, it's a big leap. Does it affect them? Yes, it does. I believe it does.
On curriculum, we do language and culture programs in most of our schools. We spend a fair amount of time developing language programs in Dene, Cree, and Dakota. At the grand council, with the second-level services we have, we have consultants specifically for that. And that's a very important aspect of school in our communities and for mums and dads in our communities.
At the post-secondary level there are courses they take, but I think if I were to comment, my understanding is that when students go to post-secondary school, in some way they leave that at their community, and it's a very difficult thing.
The other thing that comes across many times in the surveys we've done with our students is that they run into a fair amount of discrimination and racism. It can be as simple as knocking on a door and asking, “Can I rent this apartment?” and being told “No.” “How come?” “It's for rent.” Or “We want some other people because they have a couple of kids.” It's a delicate subject, but I have to say it. They do run into it. There are different factors that take place in post-secondary. From the students I've taught, they run into this discrimination from time to time. So there are a fair number of hurdles.
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You mention the statistics, the 44 to 184 students. If you have 200 students and you get 44 grads, that's great, but you have to remember that the population in those high schools is growing significantly.
So when I talk to my chiefs and council, I say, “It's a great thing. We've got 184. Things are looking up.” But we have to remember the volume that's there.
Off the top of my head, approximately 87% of our students are below grade 10. There's a great volume of students, and it's growing. So although that number looks very promising, there's lots of work to go forward with, in my opinion.
On school boards and input into programs, yes, all of our communities in the grand council have school boards. We have moms and dads from the community with kids in the school, and some of them are pretty active and some are not so. In terms of programs, a very strong element is to talk about culture, to talk about language, to have programs in the elementary schools to the high schools to deal with that. Lots of our communities have camps where students go out and understand those experiences, not necessarily to turn them into trappers and fishermen, because it's tough to make a career there, but just to have a good understanding of who they are, where they are. In the grand council, that's very important for us.
You talked about the guidance and counselling that takes place. In some of our schools it's tough because, as I said before, you might not have money in your budget to have a counsellor. You try to do the best you can because you know it's something that's needed. One of our projects is to bring all of our counsellors together to talk about careers and education with students, to try to be able to address some of the issues they're going through in their lives, because a guidance counsellor is a very big important part of a high school, of a junior high school. And you need people who had time to be trained to be able to work with those issues, because I believe they are very special.
On the recommendations about how to address issues, tomorrow, after it's translated, you'll have those to look at.
You made reference to improving education and structure. One of the things we've stated in our documents is to improve and equip some of our schools in the communities to address education better at K to 12, at post-secondary. A lot of times when we look at adult education, what we find from our indicators, our programs, is that the adults like to come to the high school instead of going to a different building, because the high school is able to have a biology lab, a chemistry lab, and some of those storefronts don't have those types of things.
When you talk about structure, I made mention a little while ago that you might not be able to have a chemistry teacher. Well, we've developed a distance computer classroom that goes to the community. So if I have two students in Black Lake and one student in Cumberland House, I might be able to get those five or ten students with that chemistry they need to go on because they want to be a nurse. Without that, it's not uncommon for us to say, “Sorry, you can't take Math C30, we don't have a teacher.” I have come across that, where we say, “We can't offer it to you.” So when you talk about structure, those are the types of things we're looking at in K to 12 right now.