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.
