THUNDER BAY -- There's more than a semantic difference between advocating for the return of residential schools and believing urban schools for Indigenous children should be supported with on-site residences, says the president of the Northern Policy Institute.
Charles Cirtwill is defending a report produced by NPI and its author Paul W Bennett, who Cirtwill argues has been mischaracterized as calling for the revival of residential schools.
The report After the Healing was meant to support regional Indigenous political and education leaders' advocacy to construct living centres in cities like Thunder Bay for students from remote First Nations who are moving south for high school.
"It's about creating a home away from home, creating an environment that is comfortable and welcoming and supportive for those kids," Cirtwill said.
"We've got some ground to make up on the education side. We know which way that's going but in addition to that, we also have to address their lives outside of school."
While expanding education offerings on reserve from elementary through high school is desirable over the long term, Cirtwill argued, the current practice of billeting students with local families as communities wait for schools to be built is not working.
"The simple fact is, if we want to get to the point where we have primary to high school education available in every community, that's going to take a lot of time, it's going to take a lot of money, it's going to take a lot of construction" he said.
"In the interim, we don't want to leave behind three, four, five generations of students while we invest in that. In the meantime, we need to recognize there are shortfalls we need to address."
The report holds up the example of a school in Pelican Falls 20 kilometres from Sioux Lookout where students from the Far North stay in residences over the school year. Pelican Falls' graduation rate last year was 100 per cent.That level of student achievement far outpaces schools in municipalities that have between 30 and 50 per cent higher funding per student.
Cirtwill sees the student living centre structure as preferable to efforts that have been made to increase distance education through online learning, which he said has met only limited success in the case of a Northern College program in Timmins.
"That particular population is not particularly comfortable with online learning," he said.
"They much prefer face-to-face, in-person interaction. It really becomes a challenge. While online learning has worked in the north for other populations, it doesn't look like it's going to be the solution for this particular population.
