Despite improvements still more work to do, says First Nations educator

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As he closes in on his 40th year in the education sector, Charles Cochrane says it’s been a very rewarding ride.

Cochrane, executive director of the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre (MFNERC), says while curriculums, resources and funding for on reserve education have all evolved significantly over the years – First Nations administering their own schools and education have always been the goal.

He says his career in the education sector was kind of by accident that came about when a new school was built in Ebb and Flow First Nation in the early 1980s.

“There was an opportunity to work there. I didn’t really have education, per se in my mind when I finished high school, I was just glad to finish but certainly a new school being built in the community and the pride it generated, I got involved,” says Cochrane on the latest episode of Face to Face.

Cochrane started as an education assistance, worked his way up to director of education and into his current role with the MFNERC.

Established in 1998 by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, the centre provides administrative, technical, language and educational supports to First Nations run schools in Manitoba.

It started with just a handful of employees but has now grown to a staff of more than 250 people.

The MFNERC provides services to close to 40 schools in Manitoba and created a First Nations school system.

Cochrane says it’s a huge undertaking but very rewarding for First Nations to determine their own future.

“The growth in how many of our youth have graduated, I’ll tell you it’s huge, and obviously its created a workforce from our own people,” says Cochrane.

According to Cochrane, “the rewarding part is seeing how we’ve all worked together in creating a workforce of professionals. There’s so many professionals in Manitoba First Nations.”

In 2019, in co-development with the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), the government of Canada implemented a new funding approach for First Nations education.

However, on February 18, the AFN released a bulletin – Unfinished Promises: Inadequate Federal Resources Hindering First Nations Education Progress.

The AFN says the feds are “failing to meet its fiduciary duty to adequately fund First Nations education.”

The AFN bulletin goes on to say “owing to historical and ongoing injustices, First Nations students do not start from a comparable place to non-Indigenous students in Canada. As such, provincial funding comparability alone is insufficient to address the unique circumstances of First Nations students.”

Cochrane says the funding gap has closed somewhat.

“It’s gotten much better. I know when you look at how it was, even ten years ago, the funding gap was so huge when you look at back in the day, even as an education director for my community, getting $4,500 per child and a little bit for transportation and trying to operate an education system with that, it just didn’t make sense. When you look at our provincial counterparts being able to spend more for education, it had to change, something had to change,” says Cochrane.

He believes funding for the physical schools themselves has been moving very slowly.

According to the AFN bulletin, “half of First Nations schools, a total of 202, are overcrowded, and 56 require replacement due to poor conditions. The condition of First Nations schools indicates that Canada has failed to uphold its fiduciary duty towards First Nations education and that these learning environments are not equal to non-indigenous schools.”

Cochrane says they’d like to see more resources to take classrooms beyond the four walls of the school and out on the land.

https://www.aptnnews.ca/facetoface/desp ... -educator/