Excellent move by the Harper Conservatives ....

at long last.  Looks like they have shaken themselves awake after a long, long, long slumber.  However, better late than never.

John Ibbitson and Gloria Galloway writing at Globe&Mail:
Ottawa set to enforce standards for schools on reserves. 
The Conservative government is proposing an overhaul of education on First Nations reserves to bring schools up to provincial standards, with Ottawa temporarily taking over schools that fall short.

The reforms in the First Nations Education Act, unveiled Tuesday, are the latest effort to break a cycle of educational underperformance that contributes to poverty on many reserves.

They may also trigger a confrontation with First Nations leaders.

Debate will be intense – between First Nations leaders and Ottawa, among native leaders, and between those leaders and parents and students on reserve. The Conservative government’s self-imposed deadline of having the new law in place in time for the 2014 school year will not easily be met.

The draft First Nations Education proposal was posted on the website of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada on Tuesday, to elicit feedback before the bill is introduced into the House of Commons.

Morley Googoo, the chair of the Assembly of First Nations’ chiefs committee on education, said there are many problems with it that could have been prevented if the First Nations had been allowed to help write it.........