Saskatchewan’s education minister says there could be some new initiatives by the province in the area of on-reserve education in the upcoming months.
First Nations education is under the jurisdiction of the federal government, but Saskatchewan does currently provide some funding for on-reserve adult education.
Russ Marchuk says the province set aside $3 million in the recent budget for the upcoming recommendations of a joint task force report on Aboriginal education, which could provide the flexibility to do some new things.
“We believe that there are some areas that we will be able to address right away and that is why we have set aside $3 million dollars to be able to commence more or less immediate action to the recommendations,” he says. “We don’t know what they are – final – but we want to be in a position to move.”
A report released last week by the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations says on-reserve schools in Saskatchewan are underfunded by as much as 50% when compared to other provincial schools.
Marchuk adds he intends to continue to lobby the new Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Bernard Valcourt, to address the funding gap in on-reserve education.
The joint task force on Aboriginal education is set to release its recommendations next month.