Thank you.
Welcome to our witnesses. Thank you for your opening comments.
I'm still somewhat new to this committee. This is my second week here and I'm still understanding the premise of this study. When I go back to the terms of reference in the motion that was introduced, we are talking about gaps in attainment levels between indigenous students and others. I'm assuming the premise is that indigenous persons or students have lower graduation rates.
I'm initially going to direct my questions to Ms. Smith.
I'm also wondering about how often we see female students further disadvantaged, for a number of reasons. Do you know if those attainment levels have a gender difference between indigenous women or girls and males? If that premise is the case, do you have any sense of what factors may be exacerbating or causing that? Once we start understanding if that's actually the premise, if that's true, then we can look at how we start addressing that gender inequality.
I'll start off by asking if there is actually a difference that you're aware of, and is there any information you would have on that?