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Both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal population experienced significant increases in their
level of educational attainment since 1971. The Aboriginal population, however, has been unable
to close the gap with the non-Aboriginal population in the average number of years of schooling.
Comparing the 45-54 Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal cohorts, we can infer that non-Aboriginal
Canadians of the same age had on average 2.40 more years of schooling than Aboriginal
Canadians in 1971. This gap decreased to 1.75 years in 1981, but has increased since then,
reaching 2.04 years for the 2001 cohort. In other words, despite constant increases in their level
of educational attainment, Aboriginal Canadians‘ level of educational attainment has not been
growing fast enough to close the gap with non-Aboriginal Canadians.
ii. Change in the 1996 to 2001 period
High school completion rates increased for Aboriginal communities between 1996 and
2001. Moreover, the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations in terms of non-
completion of high school is closing. In 1996, 44.1 per cent of the Aboriginal population and
65.6 per cent of the non-Aboriginal population completed high school, a gap of 21.4 percentage
points (Table 3). In 2001, the figures were 52.2 per cent for Aboriginal Canadians and 69.1 per
cent for non-Aboriginal Canadians, a 16.9 percentage points gap. In other words, the gap was
4.5 percentage points lower in 2001 than in 1996. At this rate, the gap between Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal populations in terms of completion of high school would be only 3.4 percentage
points in 2016.
Focusing on the 25 to 34 years cohort, 54.3 per cent of the Aboriginal population had
completed high school in 1996, compared to 82.2 per cent of the non-Aboriginal population
(Appendix Table 4). By 2001, 65.6 per cent of Aboriginal Canadians aged 25-34 had completed
high school compared to 85.5 per cent for non-Aboriginal Canadians (Appendix Table 3). Thus,
while the Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal gap in the percentage of the population completing high
school was 27.9 percentage points in 1996, it decreased to only 19.9 percentage points in 2001,
an eight point reduction.
In 1996, 8.5 per cent of Aboriginal Canadians had at most a high school diploma, one
percentage point lower than in 2001. Post-secondary education is also on the rise among
Aboriginal Canadians. In 1996, 21.4 per cent of them had frequented college (including those
who did not graduate), and this figure increased to 25.5 per cent five years later (Table 3). There
was a similar increase in university education; 10.5 per cent of Aboriginals had been to
university in 1996, which increased to 13.3 per cent five years later.
The main difference between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations was their
respective drop-out rates: Aboriginal college and university drop-out rates increased from 30.1
and 25.6 per cent in 1996 to 34.3 and 32.7 respectively in 2001. Non-Aboriginal Canadians, on
the other hand, experienced a slight decrease in their college drop-out rate (from 26.0 per cent in
1996 to 25.3 per cent in 2001) and only a marginal increase in their university drop-out rate
(from 14.2 per cent in 1996 to 16.8 per cent in 2001).