For several years, a movement has been running through Quebec and Canadian universities: the indigenization of education. In response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, several post-secondary institutions have been fighting against the legacy of colonialism in our education since 2015. Concordia is doing so today by eliminating tuition fees for Indigenous students.
I have done some research on this topic myself. Of 50 introductory international relations course outlines, 54% cover the Cold War, but only 6% cover slavery and its aftermath. While 64% cover globalization, only 8% mention decolonization processes (still ongoing in many places). Yet all of these themes have an impact on global politics.
Despite the relatively simultaneous emergence of these theoretical approaches, 92% of courses present realism, but only 30% postcolonial studies. While gender studies stand out a little better and appear in 50% of course plans, it would also be wrong to say that “critical approaches” dominate the university. This is without counting studies on racism (critical race theories), which are only featured in 14% of reading lists.
What we find in our teaching is therefore a matter of choice, not objective realities. For example, Atikamek professor Suzy Basile studies the often invisible knowledge of Indigenous women about environmental preservation, despite their unique connection to the land. As part of a biology research project, Inuit elders in Alaska helped non-Indigenous researchers understand the link between the disappearance of belugas and their difficulty in feeding themselves: they had noticed that the increase in the beaver population had forced salmon, which the belugas feed on, to migrate differently because of the dams.
Teaching a greater diversity of approaches, including Indigenous perspectives and methodologies, leads to a more complex and accurate view of the world.
This necessary effort to rebuild the university institution and science has seen a certain “tokenism” of people of indigenous origin. Without necessarily initiating a profound overhaul of their teaching or their programs, departments will prefer to hire an indigenous person, in particular to do the work of “decolonization” or “indigenization” (and I emphasize the quotation marks here).
Access to higher education
How do you hire a university professor when so few Indigenous people are admitted to doctoral programs? The Commission’s report emphasized that indigenization was primarily about removing barriers to access to higher education for Indigenous students. This race to hire means that some Indigenous doctoral students are hired long before their thesis defense. In some cases, non-Indigenous people are hired to fill a position on Indigenous topics, in order to avoid losing a job in a world where departments are fighting for new positions.
Before we can think about hiring an Indigenous person to fill our quotas, we need to address the historical inequalities that make it harder for this segment of the population to access higher education. For example, the post-secondary completion rate is increasing across the country, but less quickly for Indigenous people than for non-Indigenous people, widening the gap between the two even further.
That’s what Concordia University decided to do a few weeks ago by offering a tuition waiver for First Nations and Inuit students, for the majority of its full-time and part-time programs. Other institutions with similar programs include McGill University (since this fall), the University of Waterloo, the University of Toronto, Humber College and Red River College Polytechnic.
According to the newspaper Varsitythe University of Toronto would also grant “domestic” tuition fees for indigenous students living in U.S. territory. They are thus applying the Jay Treaty of 1794 on the free movement of indigenous peoples between Canada and the United States. The University of British Columbia does the same thing, failing to offer an exemption to indigenous people here.
An important fact about Concordia’s program is that the fee exemption is valid for the duration of the academic credits rather than for a limited number of years. A program limited to a fixed number of years would mean that everyone could complete their studies in the same time, which is far from being the case. When I started my doctoral studies, most people thought I would graduate in four years, while the Canadian average for a completed PhD in the social sciences is about six years.
That said, if reducing tuition increases completion and reduces historical inequalities, why not extend free tuition to people whose parents did not attend college (less likely to attend and complete a university program), women (historically less likely to be hired as professors), people with disabilities, people with lower incomes, and so on? In other words: why not reduce the financial barriers to education for all?