For a brief moment, Canada had a window of opportunity to improve education for native children at on-reserve schools with the First Nations Control of First Nations Education Act, which sets minimum standards and secure levels of funding.
Ottawa’s decision to put Bill C-33 on ice in the wake of Shawn Atleo’s resignation as national chief of the Assembly of First Nations is deeply regrettable, but understandable. Mr. Atleo’s support of the bill was the linchpin of its legitimacy. Without him, the government needs renewed buy-in from native leadership. More...

By Stephen Hume. Yet legislature is adorned with historians, literature scholars, musicians and sociologists. I laughed out loud when I read Vaughn Palmer’s joke with Shirley Bond about career choices. The cabinet minister was explaining the governing Liberals’ plan for higher education, which would involve socially engineering our world class universities — three make the top 500 list and one, UBC, ranks 40th — to make them better farm teams for business. The plan would serve the same lazy industries that protest taxes, high wages and skills shortages, but which expect taxpayers to foot the bill for training their future employees. More...

230 people celebrated their graduation Saturday at the U of M's annual Powwow. It was a day Dene Beaudry thought he would never see.
"Education, for me, was a dream," he said.
Yet Beaudry graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Manitoba Saturday. The university held its 25th annual graduation Powwow to honour indigenous graduates. Beaudry left school after grade eight, ending up as an adult working with young people in Winnipeg's North End, admonishing them to stay in school, and keeping them on the straight and narrow. More...

By Jackson Lears. The Rutgers University Board of Governors has invited Condoleezza Rice to speak at the 2014 commencement and to receive an honorary doctor-of-laws degree. No one is denying her right to speak, but many Rutgers faculty members and students are appalled by the board’s decision to grant Rice the university’s highest honor. In response to that decision, my colleagues and I are planning a teach-in, to be held on May 6. We want to give our students a firmer grasp of their own recent history, in which Rice played a major role in the most troubling events. More...