I talk a lot. Where I was trying to get to earlier, with the journey between preschool and university levels, is that there is something fundamental for Indigenous students to succeed: we have to know their profile. Knowing a student's profile is vital, given all the difficulties this person experienced during their time in primary and secondary school. We don't have a lot of specialists who can intervene in our communities. We lack people to support students at both the primary and secondary school level. And yet, this follows them all the way to university.
Sometimes, perseverance and academic achievement depend a great deal on educational and psychosocial support. In fact, students arrive in an urban area, which means they’re disconnected from their community, a little lost, without cultural reference points.
Universities created centres to offer them assistance, be it for learning or psychosocial support, but it has limits. Indeed, even if we intervene within the university, students often face problems outside its walls. That means it's out of our scope. We can't offer all our services outside the university. That means it is important for us to create partnerships so that students can get support in the urban environment outside the university.
Success or perseverance is often undermined by an incident at home. It can be domestic violence or struggling to put food on the table, for example. There are many factors. I could name several. I think the most important thing is to work on establishing bridges between environments. We see all kinds of situations. I'm telling you that we have to take the student's profile into account. I don't know if it works the same way in provinces other than Quebec, but students who come to university in Quebec have a standard profile, meaning they went through CEGEP before going to university, or they have a profile that makes them eligible based on their work experience, also known as a mature student.
It is not the same thing for students who didn't go through CEGEP. They come directly to university after finishing their last year of high school. Their experience is often very inadequate to get through university. That's why it's important for specialists to support students in various ways, such as teaching them methodology or how to use information technology. It affects learning, but there are also situations where students experience isolation in the urban settings they find themselves in. They need people to intervene and support them, so that they persevere to the end of their academic journey.
This support is a very important point, especially because there is a limit we cannot go beyond at university. There needs to be a real thought process and an attempt to establish partnerships with existing organizations, such as Indigenous friendship centres. Usually, we can find one of these centres in urban areas. They could form a partnership. Students could get support through Indigenous friendship centres, but when they're at university, they could get support from people tasked with helping First Nations.
There's some thinking to do about this. It is vital for Indigenous students' perseverance and success.