The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) and Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) updated its education infrastructure standards to further support equity for schools on-reserve.
The School Space Accommodation Standards (SSAS) policy outlines service standards for the construction and major renovation of First Nations schools that ISC funds through its capital facilities and maintenance program. The goal is to guide the development of First Nation learning environments that will support individual communities’ culture, language, and ways of knowing.
The policy review began in 2019, and used a two-phased approach to address issues with space standards of school facilities identified by First Nations and regional offices.
Changes resulting from the first phase of the review took effect in April 2021, and increased on-reserve school sizes and included new allocations for spaces to support full-day kindergarten, language and culture rooms, knowledge keeper offices, counselling rooms, and outdoor learning spaces.
The newly updated School Space Accommodation Standards policy:
- ensures that First Nations can alleviate enrollment pressures and rising populations by developing design horizons up to 12 years after the opening of the school. This means less overcrowding, more culturally specific spaces, and more spaces for First Nations students to succeed in.
- supports lifelong learning as First Nations adults are included in new school designs that supports education upgrading and language learning.
- reflects First Nations students’ needs in language, culture, traditional ways of knowing, and enhances support of education programming.
- improves space design for the most vulnerable students who require inclusive/special education services.This approach is the first of its kind in Canada, and will ensure that inclusive/special education spaces are never compromised and instead based on the needs of the students, professionals, and community.
- These updates will also improve accuracy of enrolment projections, extend school design horizon, better accommodate inclusive or special needs students, provide more flexibility in policy guidance, better accommodate communities’ needs – especially those in remote areas – and make the SSAS more user-friendly.
“These are the best school standards in Canada, and First Nations continue to be a global leader in Indigenous-led school standards,” said Regional Chief Bobby Cameron, education portfolio holder for Assembly of First Nations. “With these changes, we will alleviate enrollment pressures in First Nations schools and improve class sizes and learning environments to ensure First Nations students have spaces that reflect their Treaty and Inherent Rights to education.”
