I look at this question in two ways. If we look at the short term, we need to create conditions where students are coming to school more regularly—so attendance issues....
I'm not sure if your question is about the physical conditions. Most of our schools are tiny portables. There's definitely some need for repair and upkeep. It's not uncommon for our schools to be without running water, to be without heat. There are many school closures that affect our attendance issues in our communities.
I also want to talk about the long-term conditions needed to improve graduation rates. Again, that goes to equipping students early on with the academic skills they need. It needs to happen by working with the local education authorities at the elementary school level, so having indigenous teachers in their schools is so important.
I was in Deer Lake First Nation for four years and the turnover of non-local teachers is an issue. It's hard to build on progress when you have people who are leaving. We need to make sure that we are investing in those early childhood education programs to have the success we want later on.