The gap between non indigenous and indigenous students graduating in the Quesnel School District continues to shrink.
Superintendent Sue-Ellen Miller says the success of indigenous students has been a huge focus for the District for decades, and she says the latest numbers were very encouraging.
“So last year in 2019-2020, because the data comes out one year later, but in 2019-20 we reached all students, non indigenous and indigenous students, all students at 80.8 percent of students graduating in 6 years, and Indigenous students it was 80 percent, so that’s pretty close a .8 percent difference.”
Miller says the success of indigenous students has been a huge focus for the District for decades.
“The Board has set the success of indigenous students as a huge focus for the District because there has been such inequity. Over the years there has been gaps of 20 points between non indigenous kids graduating and indigenous kids graduating. So we’ve been involved in a number of projects, a provincial project called the equity project, trying to get where the students would graduate at the same rate.”
Miller says the next set of numbers will come out in January.
She cautions however, that the next set of numbers will be tracking a different group of students, so they could change.
“It will be different every year because we track a cohort of students, so it is the kids that come into grade 8 and when do they graduate by.”
Miller says COVID could impact the grad rates for all students as well, so the Ministry will move to 5 year completion rates next year.
Regardless, Miller says when it comes to the graduation rates of indigenous students they are moving in the right direction.