First Nations Education Policy in Canada: Progress or Gridlock? (review)

In 1986, Jerry Paquette observed that, “Not only have ‘simple’ solutions to narrow problem definitions in the Canadian aboriginal education arena tended to produce outcomes totally unintended by their architects, such policies have also generated outcomes that have been much less than helpful for Canada’s aboriginal peoples” (Aboriginal Self-Government and Education in Canada, 2). A quarter-century later, in the wake of repeated prodding from parliamentary inquiries, Royal Commission reports, action plans, working groups, and damning indictments by Canada’s Auditor General, only limited progress has been made to advance from this unforgiving scenario towards an effectively financed, managed and delivered system of education for First Nations in Canada. These issues are the focus of a sequel of sorts, co-authored by Jerry Paquette and Gérald Fallon. In First Nations Education Policy in Canada; Progress or Gridlock?, the authors outline in stark terms how this bleak landscape has persisted for so long, drawing out lessons which they integrate into a vision to produce a truly representative and functioning system of education for First Nations.

Paquette and Fallon, who have published widely in areas of educational administration and finance and Aboriginal education and governance, draw on their extensive knowledge of how politics and education operate and intersect, inserting into the extensive literature on Aboriginal education in Canada unique insights that take the reader well beyond common litanies of educational problems confronted by Aboriginal communities. Their blunt assessment of the damage inflicted by over three centuries of colonial practices is accompanied by an indictment of government agents and First Nations leaders alike who continue to perpetuate this ‘pathologizing’ legacy through patterns of governance that take the form of an “exercise of absolute power with impunity” (12). This is detailed in their cautionary discussion of crisis at First Nations University of Canada, when they observe (308–9) that “it is probable that the vision these [First Nations] students grew up with of power and especially of leadership within mainstream society was almost entirely shaped by the exercise of unchecked autocratic power within residential schools.” The absence of meaningful accountability and transparency in educational governance, combined with inadequate finance and a convoluted regulatory structure, have perpetuated a system in which the focus has deviated well away from the real measures of an effective education system that is able to foster effective First Nations participation, control, and educational success.

The impetus to build a strong First Nations education system has been further derailed, the authors repeatedly emphasize, by the equation of First Nations control of education with local control, leaving numerous smaller communities without the fiscal and organizational capacities to operate a comprehensive education system. The alternative proposed by Paquette and Fallon is a multi-layered system of educational governance that would integrate distinct First Nations communities with one another through appropriate regional and national bodies. This would include the creation of a nation-wide body, framed as a First Nations Ministry of Education of Canada, which would offer greater economies of scale and comprehensive vision, consolidating expertise and offering the capacity to implement a national system of curriculum, linguistic competency, standards and assessment. The authors acknowledge the likelihood of considerable resistance to some of these initiatives, particularly from those who would have to relinquish current positions or authority, and they point as well to the controversial nature of their proposals to implement First Nations taxation in order to foster effective local responsibility and reinforce the financial base necessary to build effective educational systems. In the absence of radical changes, they stress, “The cruel alternative to the upward delegation of authority is remaining mired in amateur educational and administrative practices. When fragmented among a large number of tiny communities, local control is ultimately sham control” (216).

The book provides numerous unique and compelling insights. It offers a near-comprehensive vision for First Nations education from elementary to post-secondary levels...