More Long-Term Funding

• Funding agencies often overlook the time required for occupational training, as such if a diploma certification is required, it is a minimum of two years from the time a student walks through the institution’s door until they graduate.
• Colleges and institutes need to secure more long-term funding to allow for the upfront planning time required for effective service and program delivery, and to ensure continuity of services and programs. To this end, funding should be based on program/project requirements, and not the number of students accessing the services.

Increase Funding

• It is clearly necessary to increase budgets to develop and support new programs and essential campus services for Aboriginal students. It must be recognized that these students have to have special supports to get into programs, to stay in school and to get assistance to gain employment. Colleges are under great financial burdens. If it is a priority to have doors opened for Aboriginal youth then there must be some incentive programs for colleges.

HRSDC Funded Programs

• Develop more flexible funding criteria which does not necessarily require direct employment upon program completion, and which enables HRSDC programs to better address the gap between rural and remote and urban areas, and take into account geographic and demographical differences that exist in Canada’s rural and remote regions and Aboriginal people living in these regions.
• There should be an incentives initiative built into the EI process that would encourage students to go into training rather than stay home off season and draw EI. There could be plans articulated whereby seasonal workers could work during the season and go to school during the off season - i.e. more fisherpersons and construction workers could be in school during the winter season - to enhance their credentials and hence give them greater opportunity to work longer.
• Broaden the federal government’s definition of employment for programs which support Aboriginal people from the northern territories where the traditional subsistence economy is still important

INAC Funding

• The federal government should recognize that the majority of Aboriginal students are educated in public institutions but continue to be included within the population for whom the federal government has fiduciary responsibility. INAC should consider developing a funding program similar to the ISSP, that is accessible primarily to public institutions that have demonstrated a commitment to Aboriginal education and are guided by Aboriginal partners or advisory committees.