Education
Historically the Navajo Nation resisted compulsory education, including boarding schools, as imposed by General Richard Henry Pratt.
Nowadays, education, and the retention of students in all school systems, is a significant priority. A major problem faced by the nation is a very high drop-out rate among high school students. Over 150 public, private and Bureau of Indian Affairs schools serve students from kindergarten through high school. Most schools receive funding from the Navajo Nation under the Johnson O’Malley program.
The Nation also runs a local Head Start, the only educational program operated by the Navajo Nation government. Post-secondary education and vocational training are available on and off the reservation. Kurt Caswell, a well-known writer and professor at Texas Tech University, taught at the Borrego Pass School on the Navajo Reservation. He wrote a memoir, In the Sun's House: My Year on the Navajo Reservation (2009) about his life-changing experiences during that time.
Because drop-out rates are high on the Navajo Nation, the people have adopted programs such as the Literacy is Empowering Project to help combat academic problems. The non-profit project promotes literacy and pre-reading skills for Native children to increase their understanding of standard academic language.
Read more about this topic: Navajo Nation
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“Meantime the education of the general mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. What the tender poetic youth dreams, and prays, and paints today, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions of public bodies, then shall be carried as grievance and bill of rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place, in turn, to new prayers and pictures.”
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