4.2 Program authority One aspect of program authority has already been addressed under governance (4.1) in the previous section. We noted that responsibility for NORTEP-NORPAC operations was seized by a school board to ensure that a teacher education program in northern Saskatchewan was initiated in a timely way (soon!) and in a manner that truly met northern needs. However, to achieve its ends, the school board needed cooperation from the university sector in the province. The school board itself did not have the authority under the Education Act to create university-accredited programs and courses, much less to offer degrees. In 1976, therefore, the Northern School Board sought and obtained support from the College of Education at the University of Saskatchewan to collaborate in the creation of an Aboriginal teacher education program for the North. In particular, the College agreed to provide a special appointment, and office space, for a Director position that was to be funded by the Northern School Board. It was understood that the Director would be responsible for designing an academic program for the College’s approval. The Director position itself was located within the College’s Indian and Northern Education Program (INEP), which was, at the time, a distinct academic unit in the College. Both Audie Dyer, INEP Director, and Dr. Robin Farquhar, Dean of Education, were supportive; the College would provide an academic home, but all operational and salary costs were to be borne by the Northern School Board. Some precedent had been set by the Indian Teacher Education Program (ITEP), which was based in the College, but was funded by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (DIAND). There were, however, two important differences between ITEP and what would become NORTEP: (a) whereas ITEP was a program of the College, with funding flowing from INAC to the College, NORTEP was a program of the school division, with funding flowing from the province to the Northern School Board; (b) ITEP was an on-campus program, whereas NORTEP was destined to be a northern off-campus program governed by elected northern trustees. As we have noted earlier, the novelty of these arrangements reflects deep underlying political and sociological pressures. The newly elected Northern School Board was determined to retain ultimate control of the program; the Board was willing to partner with the university, but it was not willing to have the university ‘own and operate’ the program.14 The notion of ‘Indian control of Indian education’ was a vital aspect of the call for decolonization by Native peoples of the day (in 1976-77); the unusual arrangement between the Northern School Board and the College of Education was, most decidedly, an administrative and organizational reflection of this movement. The principal feature of the arrangement was, in effect, a marriage of convenience between the two aspects of the program’s function—its operations and academic authority. The Until 1975, the Northern School Board trustees were appointed by the Minister of Education; in 1976 the Board became an elected body and, in 1977, it was incorporated as the “Northern Lights School Division No. 13.” Most of the trustees were Métis or First Nation peoples (8 of the 9 members); all were residents of northern communities.
14
Page 22
