More talks needed on McGill tuition exemptions for Indigenous students, KI says
Last month, McGill University announced its new initiative of covering tuition costs and mandatory fees for Indigenous students would begin with the upcoming fall semester.
However, this program has a few addendums when it comes to Nunavik students, as Kativik Ilisarniliriniq says more discussions are needed to iron out the details.
Starting in the fall, the university, based in Montreal, plans to only offer full tuition coverage to students from nearby Mohawk communities, including the six Haudenosaunee nations of the Grand River in Ontario.
McGill calls this its “first phase” of the program.
When it comes to other Indigenous students, including Nunavimmiut, the deal only includes prospective or current diploma students enrolled in McGill’s school of social work, school of continuing studies, or the office of First Nations and Indigenous education.
The free-tuition program focuses on nearby Indigenous communities because McGill is established on their land, said Celeste Pedri-Spade, McGill’s associate provost of Indigenous initiatives, in a phone interview.
“[The university] has decades-long relationships with other First Nations and Inuit communities throughout what is now the province of Quebec,” Pedri-Spade said.
“What does it mean to not include students that are enrolled in programs with those communities?”
That is why Inuit students enrolled in those programs through Kativik Ilisarniliriniq, the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services and Makivvik were also included in this initiative.
Pedri-Spade said this initiative is a response to a call to action from the provost task force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous education.
The call is to “take concrete steps toward the provision of waivers of tuition and mandatory fees for all Indigenous students enrolled at McGill,” according to its website.
What was announced now is deemed to be the first phase of the initiative.
After that, McGill will evaluate whether the initiative works for everyone, and how expansion could then be done.
“There is a lot of working together that we need to do to make this happen,” Pedri-Spade said.
“We’re hoping to convey the message that we understand, and we will support students as members of their communities and their nations.”
Mamadou Diop, the director of adult education and vocational studies at Kativik Ilisarniliriniq, said in a statement to Nunatsiaq News the “announcement made by McGill University is a very positive development,” and that “it may have a financial impact on the teacher training programs KI offers to the Inuit teachers it employs.”
“We still have to sit down with our partners at the McGill faculty of education’s office of First Nations and Inuit education and at the Ministry of Education to work out how this will affect the budget of our subsidized programs, and the impact it may have on our current and future partnership agreements,” Diop said.
He added that until this is clarified, “it is difficult for us to comment on this new initiative.”
Cedric Gallant, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Nunatsiaq News
