The Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre (MFNERC) has been in partnership with Dakota Tipi First Nation for a year now.

Chief Eric Pashe says their engagement agreement has been very successful for the First Nation since they engaged within that process.

"We're seeing and observing a higher success rate within our student population within that arrangement," notes Pashe. "We continue to work toward additional initiatives that will help support the success of our young people. As we go forward, it will always be a continued work in progress as we approach the near future with regards to the overall mandate of the community."

Pashe says the benefits of being in this agreement include assistance from the MFNERC with the improvement of service delivery.

"We've done some data collection over the last couple of years with regards to how we wanted to look to improve areas of student achievement within their academic grade level, and how we wanted to approach a better educational outcome for our young people," adds Pashe. "There are many benefits. We've had an increase in our transportation that's been very good for Dakota Tipi, where a lot of our students are transported to and from the community to schools in Portage throughout the school year. That's been a huge success for us to be able to achieve that.”

Pashe says they've had some challenges in the past when it comes to transportation within the community.

He notes the partnership is also helping them look at higher learning, post-secondary education, and how they can get more of their people into the labour market.

"With the arrangement, the federal government funding that the First Nation receives goes to the MFNERC engagement now," continues Pashe. "And with respect to those funding models, we try to capture the improvement of the outcome with regards to education outcomes for our young people here."