Indigenous students often face a dilemma when they choose to attend
University. Many must make the decision to remove themselves from their
communities in order to receive an “education” instead of staying home and
being educated by their own people. Like most individuals, Indigenous
youth want to help build and create better futures for their Nations.
Attending university is an obvious solution most Canadians would suggest.
However, we experience universities as colonial institutions, which teach
dominant Western theories and ways of doing things, and in order to
succeed we must do so within a Western paradigm. As a minority groups on
our own land within a settler society, obtaining a Western education is a
near necessity for getting well-paying jobs to support our families and
higher-positions within the employment sphere in order to support our
communities.