In mid-July, the Trudeau government opened its pockets in order to assume its responsibilities towards Aboriginal people in terms of education in Quebec. The Government of Quebec, which also has a responsibility in this regard, was not involved.
Ottawa has added 306 million to bring to more than a billion in five years the funding it grants to 22 Aboriginal communities grouped within the First Nations Education Council (FNEC). According to Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu, the agreement aims to give Indigenous people control over their education system. “Colonization has had a negative effect on the academic success of young Aboriginal people,” she said at the time of the announcement in Kahnawake — nonsense, since the concept of academic success was completely foreign to the First Nations before the Europeans enroll them in schools.
Be that as it may, this agreement is the result of several years of exchanges and covers eight nations with 28,550 members and 5,900 students.
The agreement is innovative in the sense that the funding calculation is not based, as in the past, on federal bureaucratic criteria, but on a detailed assessment of needs made by the FNEC. Its objective is to strengthen the full ownership of schools by the communities and the deployment of a school program adapted to their cultures. The recruitment of qualified teachers and specialized professionals will be supported, as will adequate funding for school transportation.
The challenges are great, and the exercise of greater autonomy should contribute to improving academic success and increasing the number of secondary school graduates.
Not all of the nations and bands present in Quebec took part in the agreement. Under the James Bay Agreement, the Crees and Naskapis, as well as the Inuit, already independently manage their own school boards. Moreover, the Innu bands, except that of Mashteuiatsh, have not signed such an agreement with the federal government.
If Aboriginal education is a federal responsibility, it goes without saying that bridges exist between these Aboriginal schools funded by Ottawa and the Quebec school system, particularly in terms of textbooks and curricula. In addition, according to the evaluation of the Ministry of Education, more than 2,000 Aboriginal students attend public schools in Quebec. In the case of students overseen by the FNEC, approximately 1,500 of them attend off-reserve Quebec schools, public or private.
Last November, the Minister of Education, Jean-François Roberge, and the Minister responsible for Aboriginal Affairs, Ian Lafrenière, announced the granting of nearly $20 million to add educational material that takes into account the current reality of First Nations Nations, provide training for teachers in the subject and offer professional services to Aboriginal students. In the longer term, there are plans to revise curricula to incorporate Aboriginal perspectives that are currently absent. It is far from competing with the billion that Ottawa has put on the table, but it is a step in the right direction.