It’s a “moral imperative” for Saskatchewan school divisions to stop reporting First Nations student achievement data separately from non-First Nations students, Horizon School Division director of education Kevin Garinger says.

“In the last few years as we continue to do our work in supporting our First Nations children and supporting all children in Horizon School Division, it’s just been working at me and eating at me a little bit, that I think we need to have more discussion around this.”

He’s raising the issue at the Provincial Leadership Team meetings on Friday. That group consists of officials from the education ministry, school divisions and First Nations.

School division annual reports currently show how First Nations and non-First Nations students perform in categories such as graduation rate, credit attainment and reading level.

The data is valuable for measuring and improving student performance, but can be used to create a negative image of First Nations students, Garinger said.

He cited a Regina Leader-Post story about a C.D. Howe Institute report linking Saskatchewan’s First Nations students to the province’s scoring on an international standardized test.

“When we look at the ethical use of data, we need to look deeply at what the intent of gathering the data was for. If it’s for the purposes of being able to make informed decisions around instruction like our teachers and our principals and our school divisions do, then great.

“But then, where does it say that the ethical use of data should be sharing it with the general public? Because it does isolate specific groups of children and I think that’s where the concern is.”

Horizon School Division has the most federally funded students - those who live on a First Nation - of any school division in the province, he said.

The Sask Party government’s 2014 Education Sector Strategic Plan aims to improve First Nations and Metis achievement and graduation rates and raise Saskatchewan's graduation rate to 85 per cent by 2020.

The provincial graduation rate was 76.5 per cent in 2016-17 - but 43.2 per cent for First Nations, Métis and Inuit students, the government says.

In terms of evaluating progress toward that goal, Garinger said if combined graduation rates are shown to rise, that would likely mean more First Nations students are graduating.