Evidence of meeting #18 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was students.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Colin Mayes
To sum up, the opportunity is available, but the funds are not. That's what you're saying, correct?
9:45 a.m.
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
I'm going to do more on the funding, so it may help illuminate things.
We've had a number of reports--“Best Practices in Increasing Aboriginal Postsecondary Enrolment Rates” is one--and we've had the minister's national working group, the Assembly of First Nations.... They've all done a significant amount of work on looking at the barriers to first nations in post-secondary education--and that includes trades, I might add. The Assembly of First Nations did a report that looked at the funding levels required for post-secondary. In 2003-04 the Government of Canada funded 22,556 full- and part-time first nations students through INAC's PSSSP, which was approximately $12,200 per student. They looked at the demands, which included rising tuition costs, the cost of living, the demographics--and I think you pointed out the demographics. Many students are either single parents or have children. Often they are required to leave their communities, which puts additional burdens on them in terms of transportation and all kinds of other issues. They estimated that they actually needed $23,800 per student.
Any of us who have been involved in post-secondary education knows--and you rightly pointed out the 8.1% tuition cost each year for a number of years--that students are faced with an incredibly crushing financial burden. I've heard from bands that say a number of years ago they would have been able to send two students for the money they got and now they have to send one, because for all intents and purposes there is a cap on the funding. There's also been no recognition of the increase in the numbers of students who are now graduating from grade 12 and could access post-secondary.
I wonder if you could comment. It's easy enough to just say more money. We've had all of these reports, years and years of reports, and we've had various governments who have failed to follow through on that commitment to post-secondary education. What do we need to do to get government's attention to say that not only is this a human rights issue, but it's also an economic issue? How do we get their attention?
The information is all there. Do you have any suggestions?
9:45 a.m.
Research Coordinator, Prince Albert Grand Council
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.
9:50 a.m.
NDP
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Rod Bruinooge Conservative Winnipeg South, MB
Thank you very much, Keith, for coming. Clearly, you are very interested in your students. I can tell by your demeanour and your personality. You have a degree of optimism that I think is necessary to convince people that the right approach is to move forward with education. There's no doubt that you're right that education is the key to being able to achieve success in a career, economically speaking, and there are many factors there as well.
I'd like to get you to highlight a few more of the elements of your statistical analysis, because you also seem to have a good degree of understanding of where your students are statistically. Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to see the graphs. I'm a bit of a visual learner and I like to see the fancy pie charts and such. But I'm sure once you get them translated we will have the pleasure of being able to look at them.
I want to go back to some of the stats. I know Gary did indicate some of his analysis of them, but perhaps we could go back to them for a few more moments. In terms of the number of students who were able to graduate in 2003 from the 28 schools, I have a number of 184 and that's in the 2003-04 session. How many total students was that based on?
9:50 a.m.
Research Coordinator, Prince Albert Grand Council
Of that 184 who graduated, again, that was 92% of just the grade 12 class in our grand council schools. That was just the students inside, so there were 8% of 184 who didn't--roughly a little over 200 and some.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Rod Bruinooge Conservative Winnipeg South, MB
Do you have a statistic in terms of the number of students who those individuals started grade 9 with? Do you have that breakdown?
9:50 a.m.
Research Coordinator, Prince Albert Grand Council
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.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Rod Bruinooge Conservative Winnipeg South, MB
On the number you quoted, in terms of the individuals who have a degree--your former students--you're tracking them, I assume, after graduation through to the point where they've received an undergraduate degree or more than that. You quoted the number of 8%, and 19% I think is with some degree of post-secondary education, whether they've ceased their studies or they're in the process of getting an undergraduate degree. Is that what those numbers were?
9:55 a.m.
Research Coordinator, Prince Albert Grand Council
Yes. Those are some numbers that came from the Sask Trends Monitor in 2004. What we've started to do is get our post-secondary counsellors from the communities, and we'll start to gather some more data specific to grand council post-secondary students and those who are getting post-secondary funding.
With all of our indicators programs, we grab a baseline of data, some of which comes from Statistics Canada, Sask Trends Monitor, Health Canada, whatever information we can get, and from that we build on it with our own surveys that take place in the community.
We believe, in the Prince Albert Grand Council, that some of that data as it relates to us really helps us look at decision-making and policy-making. For example, we know approximately how many students get post-secondary funding because of the rollout numbers from INAC twice a year. They say, “Here's Sam. He's going to university. He has this money here.”
I'm interested in those students who didn't get funding: How many were there? I'm interested in waiting lists: Who's making up that waiting list? Male, female, kids, no kids? How long have they been on that waiting list? What types of programs have you been asking for? Those are some of things we're looking at, to be able to gather some of that information.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Rod Bruinooge Conservative Winnipeg South, MB
I'll try to make it as quick as I can.
For the individuals who are chosen to get the somewhat limited funding that your grand council has, what criteria are utilized? I guess my question would be, are students with a higher propensity for academic success provided with some degree of consideration?
9:55 a.m.
Research Coordinator, Prince Albert Grand Council
It would be wrong for me to answer that because each of our first nations has a coordinator and I'd have to look at their policies before making a comment that umbrellas everybody. I think it would be negligent of me.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
9:55 a.m.
Research Coordinator, Prince Albert Grand Council
I feel comfortable that they would take a look at your marks, what type of program you want to go into. Also, they would have to look at the waiting list, who has been on it, those types of things. But I shouldn't say what the policies are, because although I'm sure they're similar in nature, there might be little elements to them that might be different.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Colin Mayes
Committee, it's 10 o'clock. I'm looking for some direction. If you want to continue and go into the allotted time for committee business, the chair is open to that, but if not, we'll move on to--
10 a.m.
Conservative
Rod Bruinooge Conservative Winnipeg South, MB
It's rare that we have such a knowledgeable witness. I would recommend that we continue.
10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Colin Mayes
Do you want to go another round before we turn to committee business? What is the pleasure of the committee?
Madam Neville.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
I have no problem going another round, but I want you to ensure us that all of the committee business will be accomplished in the remaining time.
10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Colin Mayes
Okay, I'll give you a guarantee: as long as we're concise and direct and to the point, everything will be fine.
