The educational disadvantage of indigenous groups has to be seen in a context where illiteracy is one component of many compounding factors within a vicious circle of poverty, poor health, high unemployment, drug abuse and crime. In Canada unemployment rates among Aboriginals are approximately double of that of the non-Aboriginal population. Many factors have contributed to the erosion of culture in indigenous communities including in the case of the Canadian Aboriginals the Indian Act. Along with its attendant “reserve” system and residential schools, several generations of children have been systematically removed from their families/ communities and punished for speaking their Aboriginal language
In the 1991 Aboriginal Peoples Survey conducted in Canada, 17% of the aboriginals aged15 to 49 reported no formal schooling or less than grade 9 as their highest level of education, this was true for only 6% of the same age group of the total Canadian population. This gap was even larger in the group aged 50 to 64:53% of aboriginals compared to 26% for the total population.