Lately, I have been reading the book "Feedback Thought in Social Science and System Theory(2)" by George Richardson, and I have become more aware how our social structures determine our pattern of behaviour, and how our own decision makers blame external events for our own failures. And when our decision makers cannot blame an external event for their own failures, then there is the ultimate Saskatchewan solution: the cover up!

And so, today, we have Department of Education(3) spokesperson Don Sangster who blames the low birth rate for last year's enrolment drop of 4,100 students in our school population(4). And the StarPhoenix reinforces the covering up of our own shortcomings by reporting this news as a matter of a fact. That is, our own governments and newspapers have no special interest to educate the public. But, we take another route, we have the vested public interest to educate the public, educate our own governments, and educate our own newspapers.

Therefore, we are going to provide senior bureaucrat Don Sangster and journalist Darren Bernhardt with the reasonable reasons why we have an enrolment drop in our schools. And one of the most important reasons the student enrolment dropped last year, is not because of last year declining birth rate; one root of the problem is that our people are leaving the province. Young families are leaving the province along with their children. And this why we have a drop of student enrolment. For Saskatchewan, Statistics Canada reports that 5,500 people left the labour force in 2000, and that 5,500 fewer people were employed in 2000(5). At the same time, the Saskatchewan Bureau of Statistics reports a decrease in our population of 2,459 for the year 2000(6), while in an astonishing statistical fashion Saskatchewan Health reports a decrease of 19,494 people for the same year(7)! We have reached the point where our own government is playing the number game, yet the original numbers at the source seem to be altogether wrong!

And I get so frustrated when I hear Jerry Zimmer, education director of the catholic school system in Saskatoon, saying that he is very conscious of the population trend. Which population trend Mr. Zimmer? That the Department of Education is predicting an enrolment drop to 160,000 by 2009 from 190,000 in the 1990s? This predicting is nothing else but a self-fulfilling prophecy to maintain the status quo and to continue to write off the growing number of poor children in this province(8)! And this is another reason why our student enrolment is dropping, because our Department of Education is writing off our poor Aboriginal children by sending them off to special alternative schools and reinforcing the cycle of division between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.

Our governments must not predict what the future is. They must provide reasonable social scenarios to steer social growth, otherwise their own policies will be reinforcing their own shortcomings and drift us to a hell of a society. In the dramatic scenario I provided for the Aboriginal population, we found the scenario that this population would increase to 233,008 in year 2010 from 143,047 in the year 2000(9). That is a dramatic scenario where our Aboriginal population would increase by almost 90,000 people in a span of 10 years. And what would be the average age of these 90,000 children Mr. Sangster, and Mr. Bernhardt, and Mr. Zimmer, and Mr. Government? You don't know, or rather you don't want to know Mr. Big Brains? Are you going to continue to write off our own poor children and send them off to special schools Mr. Big Brains? And timothy Shire was right when he said that perhaps the development of special schools... will address the problem but should we not be considering why the problem exists in the first place(10)?

References/endnotes

Relevant political and economics articles http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign

1. We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us cartoon. Quoting from The Best of Pogo Simon & Schuster 1982 http://www.nauticom.net/www/chuckm/whmte.htm

2. Feedback Thought in Social Science and System Theory, by George P. Richardson. Dr. Richardson is professor of Public Policy, Department of Public Administration and Policy, Rockefeller College, University at Albany, SUNY http://www.albany.edu/gspa/pad/faculty/richardson/richardson.htm

3. Lack of Vision in Saskatchewan Education, by Mario deSantis, March 14, 1999 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/desantis38/EducationVision.html

4. Low birth rate to blame for enrolment drop: gov't, by Darren Bernhardt, February 3, 2001, The StarPhoenix, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

5. Labour force characteristics for both sexes, aged 15 and over, http://www.statcan.ca/english/econoind/lfsuna.htm

6. Saskatchewan Population, Saskatchewan Bureau of Statistics http://www.gov.sk.ca/bureau.stats/pop/pop2.pdf

7. Saskatchewan population. Saskatchewan Health, Corporate Information and Technology Branch, Covered Population 2000. Population in health card renewal. The Saskatchewan population was 1,041,256 in July 1999, and it was 1,021,762 in July 2000 http://www.gov.sk.ca/health/covpop2000/CovPopBook2000.pdf

8. Honourable Eric Cline has not balanced the budget yet, he forgot our school-children, by Mario deSantis, April 2, 2000 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/2000/desantis155/notbalanced.html

9. A Dramatic Scenario Of Saskatchewan Changing Demography: The Aboriginal People Are Our Forgotten People, by Mario deSantis, January 18, 2001 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/2001_300/desantis311/aboriginalpeople.html

10. HighSchool.alt, by Timothy W. Shire, November 11, 2000 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/education/schoolsecurity/highschool.alt/highschoolAlt.html