Language and culture education are core to First Nations schools and schools play an important role in language revitalization.
Most First Nations schools offer distinct language and culture classes while also integrating language and culture learning throughout the curriculum in a variety of ways. Their efforts reflect the diversity of First Nations languages and cultures in British Columbia and the direction of First Nations communities.
The First Nations Schools Association supports First Nations schools to deliver effective First Nations language programming. This includes direct coaching services, materials, advocacy and program administration.
In all of its language and culture initiatives, the FNSA is guided by the direction of First Nations communities.
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As set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems, and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons. First Nation’s inherent rights to language are constitutionally protected, and are recognized by the Government of Canada in the federal Indigenous Languages Act, S.C. 2019, c.23.
