The Northern Lights School Division’s recently released 2023-24 annual report shows that only 27% of the school division’s Indigenous students are graduating high school within three years of reaching Grade 10. LaRonge Now reports that this is well below the three-year graduation rate of their non-Indigenous peers (69%), as well as the provincial averages of both Indigenous (47%) and non-Indigenous (88%) students in Saskatchewan. As a rural school division, NLSD includes 21 schools spread across approximately 325,000 square kilometers of northern SK. The majority of the student population (88.7%) have self-identified as First Nations, Métis, or Inuit. The NLSD’s three-year graduation rate has not improved since 2013-14, which the report says indicates the need for continued efforts around Indigenization and cultural and historical connections to students.
