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Educator calls for end to funding inequality affecting First Nations students

Feb 4, 2014 | 5:46 AM

Students in Saskatchewan receive free schooling, yet their education may not be valued equally.

The tuition for each student attending the Saskatchewan Rivers School Division is $10,549 a year, according to Donald Lloyd, the chief financial officer for the division.

Tuition is provincially funded for all students in Saskatchewan that attend public school.

However, students who live on a First Nation receive federal funding for their schooling.

Pauline McKay is the director of education and principal at Sturgeon Lake Central School on the Sturgeon Lake First Nation. She said she only receives $6,500 per student, per year. Then, she has to budget for their school.

If a student who lives on the reserve decides to go to a public school instead of a reserve school, the band takes on the extra charge to make up the difference between the federal funding and the tuition.

McKay considers this unfair and said one student’s education shouldn’t be “worth more” than another’s.

“If our students go to a provincial school, the province will bill the band for the tuition at their rate, not at the rate that our students are being paid to go school,” said McKay, referring to the difference between the funding given and the tuition charges. “Everyone in Saskatchewan, every child, has a right to education. It has nothing to do with the treaties.”

Almost a year ago on March 8, McKay organized a demonstration in Sturgeon Lake, and other schools in the province joined in. They were trying to raise awareness about the discrepancies in between the two systems.

“It’s not fair. I think children, no matter where they go and no matter where they’re from, should have an equal right to education.”

According to McKay, the French immersion school divisions in the province receive even higher funding ($18,000), for “preservation of their language and their culture.”

“When you think about how we as First Nations people, we lost our language and our culture through the education system and yet we don’t have extra money to regain our language back, and also our cultural practices. We don’t have money to hire Cree-language instructors,” said McKay.

McKay said that awareness is the only way to bring about change. She said that many probably don’t realize the inequalities present in the systems.

“Because of the lack of money we can’t pay our teachers provincial rate. So teachers in band schools, although they work as hard as any other teacher, they’re as professional as any other teacher, but we can’t pay them the provincial rate that any other teachers in the province get,” said McKay.

Each year, the school boards recalculate and re-approve tuition rates, based on various factors in a formula from the ministry of education.

McKay said she gets a set amount from the federal government each month. From there, most of my budget goes to salaries to pay for teachers. “Certainly the quality of education is really being compromised because of the lack of funding,” she said. Her school has around 400 students and only one physical education teacher. They don’t have Smart Boards in their classes like many of the public schools, because McKay said they are priced at $5,000, which is out of their price range.

“I just think about the equality of it. If that child is living on the reserve and then as soon you enter a provincial school then your child is worth more in the province then they are on the reserve?… That is upsetting,” said McKay.

“I guess you just accept things the way they are.”

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