ABORIGINAL CONTROLLED POST-SECONDARY INSTITUTIONS IN CANADA: THE STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION Presented at the University of Manitoba Faculty of Education Graduate Student Symposium March 1, 2013 Submitted by: Kim Browning Doctoral Student Faculty of Education University of Manitoba 2 Introduction For many years, the voices of Aboriginal1 people have been silenced due to an educational system that was thrust upon them by Euro-centric proponents in their zeal to assimilate the Indigenous people of North America. This silence was the result of many factors such as government policies and Indian agents; residential schools and missionaries; community reserve schools and non-Native teachers; and Native teachers educated in the Euro-western system with a specific mandate for education. Aboriginal peoples were marginalized and disenfranchised while exposed to education under the auspices of the Indian Act where the federal government assumed complete control of Aboriginal children and their schooling (Antone, 2000; Curwen-Doige, 2003). In this paper, I address the topic of Aboriginal-controlled post-secondary institutions by beginning with a review of the history of Aboriginal people and education, including the oppression of Euro-centrism, the residential school system, assimilationism, related to the loss of Indigenous knowledge, cultural traditions and languages. The concept of decolonization of education or an unravelling of the long history of racism and oppressive colonial policies is discussed as a process for recovery and renewal, as are the events leading up to the call for Aboriginal control of education – the jurisdictional debate, a growing Aboriginal population and a widening gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal educational outcomes. Next, I discuss the rise of Aboriginal post-secondary institutions, their unique strengths, and the challenges they face, particularly in the areas of recognition, accreditation and funding. A number of organizational and accreditation bodies for Indigenous post-secondary institutions are discussed, followed by the summary and conclusions. 1 For purposes of this paper, Aboriginal refers to the indigenous people of North America. Aboriginal is used interchangeably with First Nations, Native and Indigenous. The term Indian is legitimate terminology used in legislation such as the Indian Act, which governs the First Nations people of Canada (Antone, 2000). 3 Methodology For this paper, I have conducted an integrated research review designed to present relevant and timely research on the issues pertaining to the struggle for recognition among Aboriginal controlled post-secondary institutions in Canada. Electronic database searches were completed with Educational Resources Information Centre (ERIC), JSTOR and Google Scholar. Reviews of scholarly research in widely-recognized peer-reviewed journals were undertaken in Canada and the U.S. I also consulted research reports and policy papers from leading research organizations, government offices, and non-governmental organizations. Several website searches were conducted, and a number of publications unavailable at the University of Manitoba (UM) Libraries were accessed through the Document Delivery service. Indigenous Knowledge and Euro-centrism Marie Battiste (1998, 2005), a noted Mi’ kmaq scholar in the field of Indigenous knowledge described the Euro-centric educational system in which Indigenous knowledge became invisible to Euro-centric knowledge and consequently, it was not captured and stored in a systematic way. In some cases, there has been a concerted push to erase it. Battiste (2002, 2005) describes how cognitive imperialism, a form of cognitive manipulation, was used to discredit Indigenous languages and knowledge bases to maintain only one language, one culture, and one frame of reference. Under the residential school system, the government removed children from parents and communities where they received a traditional Indian education with the goal of replacing the language, culture, values, worldview, institutions, and economies of First Nations with those of the dominant culture (Hampton and Roy, 2002). The residential schools were oppressive, notable for high mortality rates, deadly diseases and true devastation of physical, mental and sexual abuse suffered by many students (Kirkness, 1999; Jenkins, 2007). 4 Having generations of Indian children removed from their parents, denying them a normal childhood and the teachings of their people, resulted in the loss of their cultural traditions, including their native languages. Thus, the residential school abuse was the culmination of the prevailing assimilationist ideas that integration into the dominant culture could only occur through the forced abandonment of native cultures of which Indigenous languages remained the strongest symbol (Roy and Morgan, 2008). Decolonization of Education It is through the process of decolonization, or “an unravelling of the long history of colonization, oppression, and prejudice, and returning the well-being to our people that we can begin to rebuild, heal, recover and restore healthy relationships” (Battiste, 1998, p. 4). While decolonizing and revisiting colonial paradigms offers a strategy for empowerment of individuals and communities (Cadwallader, Quiqley and Yazzie-Mintz, 2012), it is a complex and daunting task. According to Battiste (1998), a post-colonial framework cannot be constructed without Indigenous peoples’ renewing and reconstructing the principles underlying their own world view, environment, languages and how these construct our humanity. Education is one of the critical sites for decolonizing work because the modern structures of the economic and education system have been so often crafted out of the colonial borrowings of European systems (Battiste, Bell, Findlay, Findlay, & Youngblood Henderson, 2005). The task of decolonizing education requires multilateral processes of understanding and unpacking the central assumptions of domination, patriarchy, racism, enthno-centrism and the institutional and system-wide centring of the Indigenous renaissance and its empowerment (Battiste, Bell, & Findlay, 2002). 5 As Battiste (2002) further noted, teachers will need to decolonize education through a process that includes “raising the collective voice of Indigenous peoples, exposing the injustices in our colonial history, deconstructing the past by critically examining the social, political, economic and emotional reasons for silencing of Indigenous voices in Canadian history, legitimating the voices and experiences of Indigenous people in the curriculum, recognizing it as a dynamic context of knowledge, and communicating the emotional journey that such explorations will generate” (p. 20). Thus, decolonizing education offers a process through which Indigenous peoples can heal from the devastating impacts of Euro-centrism and colonialism, and chart a pathway towards recovery and renewal. Historical Developments in Aboriginal Education In 1876, under the Indian Act, the federal government assumed complete control of education for all Aboriginal children living on reserves. The goal of the government was to assimilate Aboriginal peoples into mainstream society through the education system. This created not only an inability to integrate into the mainstream culture and a feeling of disconnect from their own community, but also a deep sense of identity loss. By the 1960’s, Canadian government policy had changed so that the goal was redirected toward providing quality Aboriginal education rather than assimilation. The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs (INAC) provided funding to approximately 200 status Indian students that were enrolled in post-secondary education. In 1968, federal policy was passed introducing the Post-Secondary Student Support Program (PSSSP), which resulted in financial assistance for status Indian students pursing post-secondary studies. While federal support for post-secondary education was beginning to take shape, a major step backward occurred with the release of the 1969 White Paper Policy (Department of 6 Indian and Northern Affairs, 1969). The While Paper Policy was a federal government proposal that sought to transfer responsibility for First Nations education to the provincial governments. The policy served to rally Aboriginal peoples across Canada, who viewed this as yet another step towards the government’s goal of eliminating Aboriginal peoples as identifiable nations (Aboriginal Institutes’ Consortium, 2005; Orr, Roberts, & Ross, 2008). In opposition to this policy, what was then the National Indian Brotherhood, (now Assembly of First Nations (AFN)) issued the Red Paper Policy document, Indian Control of Indian Education (ICIE) in 1972. This document reaffirmed that education for Aboriginal persons was the ‘right’ of Indian peoples, guaranteed through treaties with the Crown and the federal government, and served notice that Aboriginal peoples would be resuming control over education. Further, ICIE called for a shift to local Aboriginal control of an education system which would “provide the setting in which our children can develop the fundamental attitudes and values which have an honoured place in Indian tradition and culture” (p. 2). In 1973, the government adopted ICIE and began to transfer administrative control of education programs to Aboriginal peoples. The call for Aboriginal control of education has been subsequently reaffirmed and acknowledged in great detail in numerous documents, including,