New RRC Polytech project aims to identify barriers to post-secondary education for Indigenous students
By: Riley Ray
Red River College Polytechnic launched a new project meant to identify the barriers Indigenous students face when accessing post-secondary education and potential solutions.
The Overcoming Barriers for Indigenous Students project invited Indigenous students to anonymously take part in an online questionnaire between March 18 to 22.
The questionnaire was created in partnership with SecondMuse and in consultation with Indigenous staff, faculty, students and community members.
Wade Parke, Indigenous student recruiter at RRC Polytech, was one of those staff members. He said they identified 80 to 90 different barriers impacting Indigenous students.
“Childcare responsibilities, poverty, colonization; those all contribute to transferring to a post-secondary environment,” Parke said.
Delaney Peebles, a 32-year-old Indigenous second-year student in the Community Development program, filled out the questionnaire.
She knows what it’s like to overcome hurdles to continue her education.
“I needed to make sure that any obstacles, any barriers, any challenges were out of the way,” Peebles said. “I had to make sacrifices my first year.”
The questionnaire will identify the top five barriers impacting Indigenous students, said Carla Kematch, director of truth and reconciliation and community engagement at RRC Polytech, who also helped develop the project.
She’s hopeful the results will lead to long term, systemic barrier changes.
Parke says that addressing the barriers will make it easier for Indigenous students to enroll and find success in a post-secondary environment.
“We can identify it, but if we don’t put the resources into it…then it’s going to be extremely difficult,” Parke said. He’s hopeful that they can be successful.
According to 2016 census data, 21 per cent of First Nations people between 19 and 30 attended or completed post-secondary education in Manitoba, compared to 65 per cent of non-Indigenous people in Manitoba.
Manitoba has the largest difference between First Nations and non-Indigenous post-secondary participation in Canada. Saskatchewan has the next highest difference.
Additionally, while education is a treaty right guaranteed to Indigenous people by the Canadian government, many Indigenous students struggle to access enough funding to cover all their school expenses.
“It took a lot of hard work and dedication to have the funding to get my education,” Peebles said.
She’s received funding through her band and through bursaries for Indigenous students.
The provincial government is addressing the educational gap in the 2024 budget, which includes more funding for student bursaries for Indigenous students.
