One thing that rarely gets talked about in First Nations’ higher education is the question of who’s driving the agenda – chiefs, elders or students?

As with any political agenda, there are a number of legitimate actors with different and valid interests. The first set of actors are the chiefs. They have a big say in Aboriginal PSE, not just in Saskatchewan where they actually own First Nations University of Canada, but anywhere that small Aboriginal institutes have sprung up (there are about three dozen of these, dotted across Western Canada and Ontario). What chiefs want is pretty straightforward: training for the people who supply public services in each First Nation. Back in the early 1990s, Ottawa began devolving various services to local control: health, education, security, social work, etc. But decades of poor education meant there was an enormous skills gap to overcome. So for the last 15-20 years, chiefs’ focus has been on churning out the necessary social workers, law enforcement officers, nurses and teachers.

What’s happening now is that in some areas at least, those positions have filled up and so the demand for education is changing and there’s a focus on other areas, like economic development. But this creates a dilemma for institutions and chiefs alike. Will institutions be able to successfully make the transition to a new set of programs? And do chiefs really want change, given how useful the institutes have been in plugging gaps in social service personnel?

Then there are the elders, an important force in First Nations society. Their overwhelming pre-occupation is with the preservation of cultures and languages, and they’ve had a significant influence in getting (mainstream and First Nations) institutions to offer up programs in these areas.

The problem is, by and large, that First Nations students themselves aren’t interested in the same things as chiefs or elders. Enrolment in Aboriginal language programs is very low. Enrolment remains strong in teacher education programs, but in other social services students are more uncertain, not least of all because it is no longer seen as a given that on-reserve jobs are guaranteed at the other end.

Aboriginal students are no different from anyone else – at the end of the day, they want a job. That’s leading more and more of them towards degrees in business and other areas they think will help them succeed in urban mainstream society. They’re not turning their back on their heritage, but they don’t necessarily see why that heritage should define their post-secondary education experience.

There’s no overt conflict here (that wouldn’t be very Aboriginal), but the divergence of interests is very real nonetheless. It is a reality that policymakers need to be aware of.