The Problem: A lack of faculty positions at top-tier Canadian Universities and Research Institutes

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Jonathan

Related post:  Making the Case for Increased Federal Support of Biomedical Research

Science, technology, and innovation are critical drivers of economic growth and national well-being. In the context of health research, their impact extends to matters of human health, quality of life, and life expectancy in our country. On a global stage, progress in health research translates into marketable discoveries for which Canada is well situated to become a global leader. While Canadian universities continue to graduate some of the best and brightest in the world, most doctoral students are encouraged to pursue post-doctoral research experiences at world-renowned scientific institutes abroad (as they should be) to develop transformative research projects that build upon Canadian expertise, allow them to establish contacts with leaders in their field, and propel them to the forefront of discovery. But innovation demands that novel ideas be pursued, and the science and technology enterprise in Canada is not well structured to attract and retain Canadian scientists abroad, who (based on my own experiences at Harvard) are often willing to take a salary cut for the chance to return home.

The underlying problem in this sector is a lack of faculty positions at top-tier Canadian universities and research institutes resulting from a lack of government support. The result has been that for even the most qualified and published amongst us, the prospects of remaining at the foreign institute we left to are better than returning to the country that invested millions to make us leaders in our field. Thus, American universities such as Harvard become excellent pools of talent that tap Canadian resources to support an industry abroad in which Canada competes directly. Indeed, American institutes such as Brigham and Women’s Hospital, for which I work, collect more than 25% of their operating revenue from scientific discoveries (the difference is made in patient fees); a statistic that reflects the value of health research. It is in these areas that developed countries such as Canada and the United States stand to be the most competitive, as low-tech manufacturing jobs inevitably become outsourced to countries in which production is more cost-effective.

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

~Winston Churchill

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Making the Case for Increased Federal Support of Biomedical Research

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Jonathan

 The Black Hole is extremely pleased to welcome Dr. Jonathan Thon to its team of regular bloggers.  Jonathan approached us last month to publish a series of articles on building a better support structure for young biomedical scientists in Canada which will be published here in four parts over the coming weeks.  As this is right up our alley, we were happy to oblige and look forward to getting his thoughts out to our readers.  He has also brought along some great ideas for bolstering the utility of the site that we hope to roll out in the coming months.  We hope that our readers will make him feel welcome and encourage him to keep contributing in the coming months.

Making the Case for Increased Federal Support of Biomedical Research

National health research funding bodies in North America sustain a high number of clinical advances, drug developments and cures proportional1; however, they cannot lobby for themselves and scientists must take up this challenge to make the case to governments for their support. As countries work to identify strategies to reduce their long-term deficits, it is imperative that governments protect, prioritize and strengthen federal investments in education, basic scientific research, and technological development, which are essential to creating economic opportunity and job growth. Although targeted spending reductions are a necessary component of long-term deficit reduction, a balanced budget cannot be achieved solely through cuts to domestic discretionary expenditures. Imprudent reductions to programs that contribute directly to economic growth undermine long-term debt reduction. Biomedical research has a demonstrated high level of return on investment, creates jobs, and result in innovations that lead to new technologies, new industries, and new companies. This type of productivity and record of achievement should be encouraged. Over the next few months this series of posts will highlight the importance of advocacy for increased federal support of national biomedical research institutes, and provide a framework for scientists to make this case to government.

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. ~Winston Churchill

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  1. Exceptional returns: the economic value of America’s investment in medical research. 2000. and Murphy K., Topel, R. The economic value of medical research.. 1999. [↩]
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It can be done: Moving labs with your CIHR fellowship

Posted on January 17, 2012 by CIHR Trainee

Winning a postdoctoral fellowship is not trivial and when you land in a suboptimal research situation after bringing in your own money, things can get pretty stressful. Today’s post is a guest post from a former colleague of mine who has been through this process (and successfully moved labs) while retaining their CIHR award – but it was a very interesting process as you’ll see. It’s quite satisfying to see that the CIHR is able to support their trainees and shows that they are quite keen to invest in people rather than supervisor or specific project. Read their story below:

It can be done: Moving labs with your CIHR fellowship

In general, my experiences with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research have been very positive and for the most part, very friendly. A few months ago, I really put this to the test when I asked CIHR if I could change my lab and, if so, what documents I would be required to provide. Perhaps not surprisingly, they e-mailed me their standard list of what to do and I started the ball rolling. I also asked them if the three-months advance notice/delivery of documents was fixed or flexible and they told me that it was more of a formality rather than a necessity.

The interesting part came when I received an email from a new CIHR staff member (a supervisor unknown to me) contacted me in a very formal note saying that she had heard from my current postdoc supervisor that I was “dropping” the project and went on to ask if I would continue working on the project for at least 75% of my time until the date that I had indicated in my original application1.

Furthermore, I was told that the “three month in advance” deadline was fixed and not flexible (as I had been instructed in the previous email exchange). Of course, this came as a shock and I suspected that my passive-aggressive supervisor had something to do with this remarkable change in tone. Initially, I was quite upset, but I decided to be diplomatic about it and wrote a very polite email mentioning that I respected their policy and would do my best to get the documents to them within their deadline (three months before the start of the new position). Additionally, I sent an updated list of publications (2-3 co-authorships and one co-first author from the current lab) and mentioned that in the publication from the current lab, the funding from CIHR had been acknowledged. I also pleaded with them to reconsider the hard deadline, expressing my concerns of a gap in training.

Happily, the next emails from CIHR were much nicer. I sent them all the documents by end of August asking to start my new position beginning of November. Not only did they say ok, but they gave me the green light in less than two weeks. Needless to say, I was absolutely ecstatic and very relieved. To me, this demonstrated the great efficiency and flexibility of CIHR and I’m really grateful to them – I really got the feeling that they cared about their trainees. I was not asked to further justify why I wanted to change labs; I had simply mentioned early on that I did not see as much potential in the current lab. As I did not change location, I did not have to fill out the justification of location of tenure, but even so, I was still surprised that they allowed such a smooth change of labs outside of Canada (my list of documents to submit is located below).

In the end, I hope that this experience is helpful to other postdoctoral fellows or graduate students who are not happy in their current position and encourages them to establish a productive relationship with their funding agency as, after all, they want their trainees to be as good as they possibly can.

—-
Required Documents for changing a lab in the same Institute:
• a description of the new research project, including a project title (maximum one page).
• a completed and signed (original or copied) “Request to Change Location of Tenure for Training Award” form.
• A signed letter of acceptance (maximum one page);
• A Common CV (validated for CIHR), including their publication list (maximum of two pages).
• A signed letter indicating their awareness of the proposed relocation, if applicable (maximum one page).

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  1. I should mention that I had been on first name basis with them from beginning of my award [↩]
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Google Scholar “My Citations” – Useful tool or the height of narcissism?

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Dave

Since I first read about it on the Piece of Mind blog by UBC Professor Nassif Ghoussoub, I have been trying to figure out whether or not Google’s new “My citations” is a useful tool for researchers.  Essentially, this tool allows a researcher to collate their publications  and the citations on those publications are displayed and analyzed.  It also updates automatically.

Pros:

  1. Standardized profile with clear metrics – This will annoy some people that like to add flair to their profiles, but from the perspective of hiring committees and prospective students, standardization is a good thing.  Well designed personal or lab websites will still exist.
  2. Free without “premium access” options – many network/profile sites are free, but the beauty of this one is that there is no premium user, so all users get the same level of access to information and same level of profile exposure.
  3. Key word mining – after identifying a few key words for your area, you can click on them to see who else in your field is listed on Scholar and click through their pages.
  4. Easy to merge/add/remove citations – typical Google, they’ve made it reasonably intuitive and straightforward.
  5. Quick to set up – it took me an hour or so to get the thing up and running and I’ve not had to update it much at all since.  It seems to pick up new publications quite quickly too.

Cons:

  1. Google Scholar inflation – Citations in Scholar are not limited to peer-reviewed journals and this means that you almost always have more citations than from any other tracker (Scopus, pubmed, etc).  The bonus is that it allows you to see the broader reach of your work, the drawback is that “popular” work can appear inflated.
  2. Equal value for “valley” publications – in biomedical science, the first and last authors tend to be the lead experimentalist (1st) and the lab head (last) and everyone in between contributes to, but does not typically drive, the project.  I call this area the valley, because it seems to be organized in a way that puts all students, postdocs, research assistants at the front in order of contribution and all “senior scientists” at the back in reverse order of contribution (the main group leader is at the end).  The problem with counting the “valley publications” is that minor contributions to a paper get full credit for all the citations of that paper.  My profile is a great example of this problem.  My top four publications (~2/3 of my total citations) are from papers that I was a co-author, not a lead author.  While I made substantial contributions to these papers, I think it’s a little unfair that they contribute equally to my h-Index, i10-index, etc.
  3. Useless without affiliation – if you have moved onto another position outside of academia, you have no way of validating your email address and do not get the same level of access to create/update your profile.

Other profile builders exist that have different strengths/weaknesses:

academia.edu - it seems to be “Facebook for academics” except that instead of photos, you have followers/friends trawling over your paper output.  One of the neat things is that you get sent an email when someone searches for you (and comes to your page) via google and tells you what key words they typed in to find you.

biomedexperts.com - probably the most niche of those I’ve mentioned, but it does offer useful “updates from your network” allowing you to track publications of those you have previously published with and to quickly see how you (and other scientists) are connected to each other (again by publication).

LinkedIn - particularly useful for those wishing to cultivate relationships outside of the academy (either for jobs or for collaborations) as the business community is well-represented on this site.

This all leads me to ask a more fundamental question about the state of training:  ”How much time is invested (or wasted) in building up one’s profile?”  There are many side discussions that I will not discuss here, but will certainly try to revisit in future posts (how much time do researchers actually spend researching?  what metrics should be used to evaluate researchers?  can the grant writing/receiving process be expedited?).  For now though, I want to explore briefly the usefulness of profile building.

Public exposure is good, especially in the international world of research.  These sites allow you to get your research out there, establish an identity for yourself and the types of questions your research asks, and link you to other researchers who do similar research.

The danger is that researchers start spending too much time building their profile and not enough time getting substance into their research.  I guess the same could be said of conferences, blogging, grant writing, teaching and a whole host of other activities.  Networks, in my opinion, are of critical importance to moving science forward as research become increasingly inter-disciplinary.  The science is paramount, no doubt about that, but getting your science “out there” and seeing what else is “out there” is also important to your future research.

For me, I think the most useful and minimally time consumptive combination is LinkedIn for non-academic relationship building and a Google Scholar citation page for keeping track of my papers and how they get cited.  On that final note, though, Id like to end on some suggestions for Google on how to improve their citation page:

  • Make it exportable (spreadsheets, graphs, pre-formatted publication list)
  • Introduce filters for 1st/last authorship and peer reviewed citations
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Quarterly Summary: A Busy Autumn + Goodbye and Good Luck to Beth!

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Dave

Happy 2012 everyone.

The end of 2011 was very busy, but it was worth it to gather some momentum behind the ideas and conversations from the site in the form of our session at the Canadian Science Policy Conference as well as steady growth in traffic to the site.

On the other hand, it is a sad time for the Black Hole as we bit farewell to Beth Snow, one of the original bloggers and regular contributors over the last two years.  I will certainly miss Beth’s regular input, but expect that we’ve not heard the last from her and will look forward to her future guest posts.  THANKS BETH  … and good luck in Business school!

This means that now, more than ever, I’ll be looking for new contributors to write on issues of importance to science training in order to keep regular content on the site.  More and more it seems that if scientists want things to change, they will have to mobilize the energy from within their own ranks.  Guest blogging will give you a chance to get your issue on the table for discussion and also can be a great way to try your hand at some non-scientific writing.  We have a few entries lined up for 2012, but lots of room for others, so please do get in touch (contact@scienceadvocacy.org) if you think you’d like to partake in the conversation.

For now, here’s a recap of what was done this quarter:

Articles Written

Marianne S

Beth:

Dave:

Our Other Activities

Dave has continued to write for the Stem Cell Network blog publishing two articles this quarter:

The feedback on the Canadian Science Policy Conference session that Dave chaired in November was quite successful - the feedback has been positive and our panel was discussed on the University Affairs site here and here.  A summary of the entire conference is currently being prepared, stay tuned for its release.

Discussion Highlights

This quarter, a few of our posts were cross-posted on reddit.com (thanks Ian M) and comments were made on that site instead.  Highlights include some anecdotal information on postdocs in neuroscience and 24/7 labs as well as some venting on the 80% of PhDs who will not become professors.

Popular Posts this Quarter

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Bidding You Adieu

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Beth

So, a while back I mentioned that I would be applying to CIHR’s Science-to-Business (S2B) program, which provides scholarships for individuals with PhDs in a health related field to do MBAs. And the good news is that I was fortunate enough to receive one of these scholarships, which I’ll be using to take the part-time MBA program at UBC. The bad news, however, is that I’m going to have to take my leave from blogging here on the Black Hole, as working full-time while doing this intensive MBA program won’t leave me with enough time for writing here. I’m sure I’ll pop in once in a while to write a guest posting, especially if I learn anything new that might be of interest to Black Hole readers.

And speaking of guest postings, since I’m leaving Dave here to carry the torch here all on his own, if you are interested in contributing a guest posting, I’m sure he’d greatly appreciate it. Just send him an email with any ideas you have!

As well, CIHR has asked those of us who have received S2B awards to spread the word about the opportunity, as the competition is running again in 2012. So if you have a PhD in a health-related field and think you might be interested in pursuing an MBA, be sure to check it out (the deadline is February 15, 2012).

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Happiness Outside of the Academy? One year later… see how this former postdoc is doing

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Marianne

This is a follow up on my previous blog post where I described my choice to enter an industrial position: “Academia vs. Industry: A former Postdoc’s perspective”.  I have been in my current position (a management position in a small start-up biotech company in Canada) for a little over a year. It has given me the time and perspective to reflect on how this decision has factored into my current level of satisfaction with my life. And, for the record – I’m very happy! In this post, I’d like to share a couple of reflections on how this was the right decision for me in the hope that it can help someone who is ‘on the fence’ about academia vs. industry.

The Science

One of the reasons I chose to leave academia and go into this particular industrial position is that I believed in the science of the company that I received an offer from. Comfortingly, that has not changed at all – our company does world-class preclinical research and have this year reported positive data from our first clinical trial. We are poised to start another trial in the new year and in my opinion, the level of scientific research is on par with any academic lab I’ve worked in. There is a clear goal to publish the data, and publish it well. One thing I particularly like relative to academic labs is the emphasis on focusing our research questions. In some academic labs (especially the very large, well-funded ones) the research can sometimes wander off in tangents. Of course, this approach sometimes comes up with the real breakthrough discoveries, but it can also waste time, resources and be frustrating to the junior researcher. Furthermore, smaller and newer labs that often struggle for grants do not have the luxury of such curiosity driven research. In contrast, our company has a tighter rein on the research course, with multiple people providing input on experiments both prior to and after their completion, along with the layer of accurate record keeping, standardized protocols, and reports. To many scientists, this can seem unnecessary and stifling, but for me and my personality, I like this focused and methodical way of approaching scientific problems.

The position

Several times in the past year, people have enquired if I miss ‘the lab’, as my position requires me to direct research, but not to do any of the hands on work myself. Emphatically, I answer “not in the least”. While I loved my time doing hands-on research and feel I have a broad background in techniques, I have always preferred mentoring and guiding, and my current position still allows me to sit back and critically assess data in search of that ‘cool result’ that I’ve often heard my former mentors ask for.  I do not think that this is significantly different from an academic position, except that with my own lab, I would have the added stress (and quite likely the joy) of starting a lab from scratch, choosing my own personnel and training them. My current position expands past the preclinical research, and it has been both a learning curve and a challenge to adapt my primarily research background into this position. So far, so good.

The people

I truly think that the reason I enjoy my job so much is because of my work environment. I was fortunate enough to step into a very positive and enthusiastic group of both scientists and support staff in this company. The scientists come from a number of different scientific specialities, and that breadth of knowledge is difficult to beat. Also, it is a relatively young group, and that enthusiasm is contagious. Occasionally, aggressive and sometimes shifting timelines stimulate spirited conversation and even aggravation, but we are all in it for the same goal, and we get there – very cool and (in some cases) very different from academic labs. I can only hope that if I started my own lab, I could assemble a team half as talented as this one – but it would have taken a considerable amount of time.

The compensation

Prior to moving into industry, I had the belief that the main reason to move into a company from academia was ‘for the money’. I’m not sure that’s true. I know that from my original two offers, the compensation/benefits package were comparable, and after 7 years of being a postdoc, quite generous. There is also the issue of stability – and I consider them to be similar between academia and industry. In an academic position, you worry about grant success and tenure. In an industrial setting, you worry about stock prices, trial results and money flow. Nothing is guaranteed – but I think in both settings it focuses you to work as hard and as effectively as you can.  On a side note, I really enjoy the interactions I’ve had in the past year with the stock holders of our company. For the most part, they constitute a group who very much want you to succeed and do not mind holding your feet to the fire. They are also some amazing people.

On a personal level

One of the biggest surprises in the first months of my new position was finding out that I had brought an unexpected souvenir with me from my last position – my first child. A little over 8 months into my new position I gave birth, and have been on maternity leave for nearly 5 months. I am slated to return to work next month. Not the easiest thing to approach so soon in your career, but my company was very supportive and it has been a positive experience. Luckily the way it worked out in my case is that there were a number of significant deadlines prior to my leave, and I was able to step away with the team picking up the slack. I have certainly stayed engaged on a superficial level since I’ve been at home, thus making my transition back fairly easy on a professional level. I cannot see how that would have been quite as smooth if I were right in the middle of setting up a lab, writing grants, teaching and training personnel. Plus, my family is living in an area of Canada that is close to both our families and we love the area that we live in.

All in all, after more than a year, I am quite pleased with my decision. Our company has close ties to academia, so I regularly get to see ‘the other career path’. I can see the path I did not choose, and I’m more than content with where I am. And that makes all the difference. (Apologies to Robert Frost…)

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A deeper look into the “80% of PhDs who do not become professors”

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Dave

In a recent comment left on the site by SubC, a request was made to “look deeper” into the 20% number of PhDs becoming professors.  Specifically, the question was raised as to “how many that wanted an academic career in the first place actually ended up in one” and that a look into postdoctoral fellow expectations might be a good place to start.

My response came in two parts, the first part was that Canada has thus far not done a good job of collecting information on its recent hires in academia or keeping track of its postdocs, which is stimulating the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars to try and address this information gap in order to establish these numbers in Canada.  In the interim, we gain a lot from how things are in the United States as our PhD programs are similarly structured (though admittedly Canada’s “time to obtain a PhD” is not as high as their 7.9 year median).

The second part of the response was to allude to the results of a survey that was completed at the University of California San Francisco to better understand the career aspirations of PhDs and postdoctoral fellows.  While this is one survey at one university, it is an excellent glimpse into the expectations of young scientists at a research intensive university.

Regarding the 20% number – our statements around rates of PhDs who become professors are NOT from Canada.  The NSF in America does collect this data and it can be seen in the following table: Doctorate recipients holding tenure and tenure-track appointments at academic institutions.  These data include social sciences PhD holders which do bring up the overall average (25%), but in the biological sciences and physical sciences these numbers are stubbornly hovering around 20% since 2003.  There were actually increases in several fields (e.g.: notable jumps in chemistry and physics/astronomy) between 2003 and 2006.  Overall though, I think it’s not particularly unfair to use the 20% number for the US and to work to find out what the numbers are in Canada through our national organizations and universities.

As for the expectations of PhD students and PhD holders, I point readers in the direction of this recently published survey from UCSF.  I will encourage a read through the whole article which describes the varied opinions of students and recommends helping students arrive at non-traditional career choices through three recommendations:

  1. Shift academic culture to embrace the branching science career pipeline
  2. Integrate career development into the graduate curriculum
  3. Transform graduate education policy at the national level

Graduate education is a little more structured though and for the purposes of answering what goes on in the mind of a postdoctoral fellow, one needs to dig to supplemental material #3.  Here, we very clearly see that the vast majority of UCSF postdocs want research careers (89%) and the majority’s top choice is a principal investigator in an academic setting (54%) (i.e.: a university professor that does research). In combination with this article’s report that 80% of all PhDs in biological sciences move onto postdoctoral work (from 2011 NRC data), a quick back-of-the-napkin calculation means that just over 40% of those who get a PhD would list an academic professorship as their primary career aspiration .   With this in mind, there is definitely a disconnect:  ~20% of highly trained biomedical scientists in America)1 will inevitably have to face the “you cannot become a professor” music.

The major point of our recent session at the Canadian Science Policy Conference was to get people to recognize that there are many highly trained clever people who (certainly through some fault of their own) are destined to be disappointed and that many of them are languishing in positions that are unproductive for everyone involved.  Ideally people ask themselves sooner rather than later a) Do I want to stay in academia? and b) Do I stand a reasonable chance of being successful in academia?  Maybe a re-read of our Say NO to the Second Postdocarticle will help people along in decision-making.Until then – keep the discussion going, keep the numbers and links rolling in and please do feel free to call us on anything you think we’re under- or over-stating.  The only way we’ll figure out solutions is to fully understand the problem and more input from readers is only going to help.

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  1. if 20% of the 40% who want them get academic posts, there will also be 20% who want them but will not get them [↩]
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University Affairs commentary on our CSPC panel

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Dave

On November 30, University Affairs posted two articles  that summarise and discuss the major issues that came up in our session at the 3rd Annual Canadian Science Policy Conference:

  1. Is Canada producing too many PhDs? Yes, no and maybe
  2. The problem with PhD training in Canada

It was really great to have Léo in attendance at this session as his journalistic eye and his vast experience covering issues in Canadian universities allows him to clearly distil the key points from our session – I strongly encourage a read through.

After reading these, you may ask:  ”What exactly was accomplished?”, and this is a question that I have reflected on myself since the conference as well.  For one, I was very pleased that we could get a stage to present this issue – many people fail to appreciate the resources that get poured into the training of scientists and what an enormous waste it is to have the vast majority of them aiming for something they will simply not become (as opposed to those who train in medicine, law, and accounting who will generally become doctors, lawyers, and accountants).

The second item is one that the UA articles really bring home.  We need to encourage people in PhD programs (and in postdocs) to look beyond academia.  I would not suggest a mass exodus by any stretch, but with a less than 20% rate of becoming a tenure track professor, one owes it to themselves to consider what else they might do with their high level of training.  We need people to actively pursue non-academic careers, and not fall victim to labels of “failing” in academia.

Thanks to the University Affairs folks, as well as to Mehrdad Hariri and his team for putting off a great conference and a special personal thanks to one team member (Marcius Extavour) for helping the Education and Training of Scientists session get organized in timely manner.

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More on Aboriginal Education in Canada

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Beth

In my last blog posting, I discussed “The State of Aboriginal Learning in Canada” report and promised to talk more about potential solutions to the barriers to education faced by Aboriginal people in Canada. To that end, I have just finished reading two reports:

Both reports are quite long and detailed and I highly recommend that you check them out if you are interested in this issue. I don’t purport to be an expert on this issue – in fact, I’m really just learning a lot of this for the first time – but I thought I’d share with you some of my impressions.

One thing that jumped out at me from my reading was that both reports recommended the elimination of a 2% annual cap on spending increases for the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development’s Post-Secondary Education Program (PSE), which provides funding for, among other things, eligible First Nations and Inuit students (but not Métis or non-status First Nations individuals) to obtain a post-secondary education. It was pointed out that a 2% annual increase comes nowhere near the increase in the cost of education since 1996, when the cap was put in place. Nor does it account for an increased number of eligible individuals seeking an education1, nor address the lack of support for non-status Aboriginal people. The Standing Committee’s report is dated February 2007, yet it appears that their call to remove this cap hadn’t yet happened even three years later, as the AFN report, dated June 2010, is making that exact same recommendation. I took a look around the Department’s website and couldn’t find anything to show whether or not anything has happened since that time on this front2.

Of course, it’s a time of fiscal restraint, so calls to increase funding are generally met with “where are we going to get the money?” The AFN report includes a section on “The Cost of Doing Nothing,” which notes that due to the health and social inequities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations “expenditures on First Nations postsecondary education are an investment with substantial returns in terms of reduced costs in social assistance, health care, and unemployment.” It’s a lot cheaper to provide education than it is to incarcerate a person or provide welfare; similarly, health care can be quite costly, but better education can lead to better health3<sup>,</sup>4

Another interesting point in the Standing Committee’s report was:

“Gilbert Whiteduck of Québec’s First Nations Education Council told us that the 2002 Minister’s National Working Group on Education “concluded there were 6,000 reports on First Nations education in this country”. In his view, “It is now time to stop studying the issue and take action, by developing specific programs. … [W]e should really be thinking of the young people who no longer have any hope, and yet would like to make a positive contribution to Canadian society in their own culture.”

And, of course, money isn’t the only issue. Again from the Standing Committee Report:

“We know, however, as Roberta Jamieson reminded us, that although increased financial resources are essential, “problems won’t be dealt with, nor potential liberated, if we just throw enough money at it”.

The Committee believes that government also needs to work in close collaboration with Aboriginal stakeholders in developing a comprehensive, long-term strategic approach to Aboriginal post-secondary education. Immediate measures to address present failings in existing systems in the short term need to be supplemented by the development of medium and long-term measures to ensure the cycle of disadvantage owing to inadequate financial resources is not repeated.”

The AFN report talks quite a bit the right of Aboriginal people “to exercise full jurisdiction over First Nations learning.” And I am again reminded that I’m writing about this issue as a non-Aboriginal individual. Solutions for these complex issues can and should come from Aboriginal people, working in collaboration with others in post-secondary institutions and government, towards a common goal of supporting the learning needs of Aboriginal people.

The AFN report talks about “the need for supporting post-secondary education and skills training for First Nations youth and adults, not only for them to meet their individual academic aspirations, but also that they may contribute to the capacity and nation building required to facilitate strong First Nations governance.” The Aboriginal population is the fastest growing demographic in Canada, with a lot of potential,  and it behooves all Canadians to be concerned about this issue, both from a standpoint of equity, but also with a view to the economic future of Canada.

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  1. The Aboriginal population is the fastest growing demographic in Canada. [↩]
  2. If anybody happens to have information on this, please let us know! [↩]
  3. And this is strictly from a financial point of view. It says nothing about the emotional/mental/spiritual toll of unemployment, incarceration, ill health, etc. [↩]
  4. For an economic analysis, see Investing in Aboriginal Education in Canada: An Economic Perspective by the Canadian Policy Research Networks. [↩]
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