Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

The legacy • 199Post-secondary educationTo help close the income and employment gap, Aboriginal people need increasedaccess to post-secondary education. Only 8.7% of First Nations people, 5.1% of Inuit,and 11.7% of Métis have a university degree, according to the 2011 census. 71 The federalauditor general has commented: “In 2004, we noted that at existing rates, it wouldtake 28 years for First Nations communities to reach the national average. More recenttrends suggest that the time needed may be still longer.” 72 The barriers to post-secondaryeducation have had profound effects. Geraldine Bob attended residential schoolat Kamloops, British Columbia. She told the Commission at a Community Hearing inFort Simpson, Northwest Territories, that poor education and negative experiences atresidential school delayed her attendance at university and her entry into the workforceas a teacher. She suggested thatthe residential school system owes me those lost years. You know, I lost myretirement; I have to keep working, I don’t have a good retirement fund becauseit was so late when I went to school. And I’ve proven that I can go to universityand be successful as a teacher. So … that little tiny bit of Common ExperiencePayment doesn’t compensate for all that loss. 73Almost no one with some university or college education who spoke to theCommission had been able to obtain that education directly after high school. Most,like Geraldine Bob, had lost years to the time it took them to heal enough to even considerthe possibility of upgrading their schooling.If access to post-secondary education is to be improved, increasing the rates of secondaryschool completion is an important step. But even for those who qualify for auniversity program, there are significant obstacles. Federal funding for post-secondaryeducation suffers from the same 2% funding cap that has been imposed on elementaryand secondary schools since 1996. The First Nations Education Council estimatesthat there is a backlog of over 10,000 First Nations students waiting for post-secondaryfunding, with an additional $234 million required to erase that backlog and meetcurrent demands. 74 The financial barriers and other difficulties that Aboriginal peopleface in attending post-secondary institutions deprive the Canadian workforce of thesocial workers, teachers, health-care workers, tradespeople, legal professionals, andothers who can help address the legacy of residential schools.Call to Action11) We call upon the federal government to provide adequate funding to end thebacklog of First Nations students seeking a post-secondary education.