Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm glad to be here with a distinguished panel of many of my colleagues in the field of higher education. And it's good to be back in front of the committee and to be in the garden spot of North America, here in your constituency.
In the brief time I have today, I want to raise one very specific issue that I think is really vital, not only to my own university and to Manitoba but to the country as a whole, and that is the urgent need to invest in the education of aboriginal people in Canada. It is absolutely crucial for the development of Canada's human potential, its economic well-being, its sense of fairness and equity, and for the advancement of both national and international goals.
What currently exists is not working, and just throwing more money at it will not fix what is basically a broken system. What I think is really needed is a much more coherent, practical, concrete, innovative set of actions that are tied to a common strategy. I'm not here to talk about things in the abstract. I think it's time to get down to practical necessities, because the time is passing.
Here in western Canada we have what is one of the unique comparative advantages of any developed country in the western world--a young and growing aboriginal population compared to most other societies where the population is aging and in decline. This is an enormous asset that must be developed and nurtured in terms of the future well-being of all of us. But this opportunity will be lost if we don't take the educational challenge seriously.
Far too many aboriginal youths are disengaging and dropping out of school. In the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan virtually 70% do not finish high school at this point in time. That means that the pool of people available to go on to post-secondary education in colleges and universities is so small that the draw is really meaningless and actual numbers are declining in the rates of participation. With some notable exceptions, many still do not move into post-secondary education.
There's a lack of skill preparation in crucial areas, a shortage of aboriginal teachers, administrators, researchers; and in certain areas of skills such as the sciences and other areas, the fall-off rate is really quite drastic.
I think you will have received from us a paper that we developed in consultation with a number of aboriginal organizations, both in our university and in the community, trying to set out a strategy from the point of view of a university that is in the downtown part of Winnipeg, where 40% of our surrounding population is aboriginal and 10% of our student population is aboriginal. It does propose what I call a holistic approach to the issue, but one that has a very specific interest to it. It's a blueprint, basically, for action to make aboriginal education a national priority.
We have to first address the need for an ongoing shortage of aboriginal educators, from teachers in K-to-12 to scholars and academics in post-secondary education. There simply are not enough people going into the system. That is compounded by a lack of administration in many aboriginal communities and reserves to make sure that the organization and the development of effective school systems is under well-trained hands. Aboriginal science and mathematics are in high demand but in very low supply, as is a curriculum that includes science and math from an indigenous perspective.
One of the things we are working on at our university is how to meld the experience of wisdom that comes out of indigenous science, the knowledge, with the conventional western science, so we actually can begin to understand very much the very dramatic changes taking place in the world around us. As we work with a major program in access for aboriginal teachers, two programs called WEC and CATEP are both designed to bring people into that area.
We are also, Mr. Chairman, exploring the fact that the financial system presently available to support aboriginal students is not adequate, not so much just in pure tuition terms but in being able to provide the support services--the housing issues, and the other areas of incentive and support--that will be required to bring aboriginal students back into these areas. That also means, as we've seen at our university, a major outreach into the public school system so that we begin to provide the universities of higher education. We all are resource bases and we're public institutions. We have a responsibility to be able to share those resources with the public school system to be able to substantially increase and upgrade the number of aboriginal students graduating from high school and therefore coming into our colleges and universities.
I hope members of the committee will look seriously at this issue. To me, it is one that sits as a priority. If we do it right, we can provide a major asset and development that will serve us well into the future.
Thank you very much.