Education transformation and first nations control of first nations education on reserve for elementary and secondary are our driving mandate and our driving purpose. That transformation is attached to funding, the program structure, outcomes, reporting and data.
The Auditor General's report really drove a lot of that. The minister spoke about the change to the graduation rate, which was criticized in the Auditor General's report because it focused only on students who had entered grade 12 and graduated. We've moved and will be reporting in the next cycles of plans and reports a cohort base, which matches more what the census in Canada does, as well as what provinces do and what our partners do as they support students throughout their high school career toward attainment, not just those at the end. That is a concrete change that is driven by that Auditor General report.
We also looked at the type of data, the amount of data and the reporting burden, and we have reduced that. A part of the program structure of transformation was eliminating proposal-based programs, which were very cumbersome and resulted in funding and activities that weren't evenly or fairly distributed across the country or within regions. The elimination of those and the move to a formula basis greatly reduced the number of proposals and reports that partners would need to go through.
The changing performance measurement framework that the department works on is really targeted at what drives the funding out in a transparent, predictable way, and we are creating that space to co-develop indicators with our partners, as well as through regional education agreements, which are the most powerful part of our mandate to have first nations define their vision, their voice and their outcomes.
The CEPN in Quebec, the First Nations Education Council, is about exactly that. I understand a witness will be appearing here in the future. It's about letting first nations have those three parts—the transformed funding, the structure and the outcomes—to define how they will see their students, under their control, advance.
Thank you.