Promote education incentives for aboriginals, disabled: Report
March 1, 2011
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Louise Brown
EDUCATION REPORTER
Ontario does too little to promote higher learning to children who need encouragement most — disabled and aboriginal youth and those whose parents never went past high school — says a group representing 2.4 million students from kindergarten through college and university.
In a report being released Tuesday, students say Queen’s Park fails to promote incentives it already offers, citing one child-care bursary for students with three dependents that was used by only 24 people in the province.
“So public awareness of these programs clearly isn’t enough,” noted Alexi White, executive director of the Ontario Undergraduate Students’ Association, which penned the report Breaking Barriers with the College Student Alliance and the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association.
White also said a government bursary for so-called “first-generation” learners — the first in their family ever to attend college or university — was claimed by about 2,200 students, which he said is only about 2.3 per cent of the estimated 91,000 first-generation students on student aid who should have been eligible for the money.
The government says it has spent $55 million since 2005 to recruit more of these under-represented groups, and reports the ranks of disabled students has grown 35 per cent since 2005.
But students argue first-generation students remain only half as likely as others to get a post-secondary credential. They want the province to start pitching college and university as early as Grade 6, and provide a lesson on applying for a student loan a compulsory part of Grade 10 curriculum.
“My mother couldn’t understand why I needed to give her bank account number to the government to get a student loan; neither of my parents went past high school,” said McMaster University student Shivani Persad. “It would have helped to have had a lesson on student loans in Grade 10 instead of just talking about careers.”
The report also cites a need for more sensitive outreach to aboriginal students, of whom just 6.3 per cent attend higher learning, compared to 63 per cent of the general Ontario population.
“For many aboriginal students whose families aren’t familiar with the post-secondary system, just applying can be difficult – I almost gave up half way through,” said Sault College student Patrick Hunter, in Toronto recently to apply to the Ontario College of Art and Design University.
“It can be like a culture shock to come to an urban campus from a remote community – I’m from Red Lake, 24 hours north of Toronto – so campus staff need more training in cultural competency so the aboriginal students don’t feel out of place.”