Indigenous Languages in Education grant program

Overview

The ILE grant program was a one-time funding initiative to support Indigenous language and culture programs in early childhood education and Kindergarten to Grade 12 curriculum. The grant program had 2 streams:

• Teacher/Instructor Development
• Resource Development

The ILE grants program is no longer accepting applications. The application deadline for these grants was December 18, 2018, and work funded by the grants is currently underway. This program invested $7.8 million to fund projects that increased capacity for teaching and learning in all major Indigenous language groups local to Alberta.

Teacher Development

Up to $285,000 annually was available per applicant to help fund programs that focused on increasing the number of Indigenous language training opportunities for early childhood education and Kindergarten to Grade 12 instructors and teachers.

This included:

• developing Indigenous language courses
• curriculum and program development
• increasing access to existing language programs
• developing transfer agreements with post-secondary institutions
• development of bridging Indigenous language programs towards a Bachelor of Education

Resource Development

Up to $50,000 was available annually per approved project focused on increasing the number of teaching and learning resources available in Alberta's Indigenous languages for early childhood education and Kindergarten to Grade 12.

This included:

• books
• videos
• audio
• websites
• applications
• games
• other professional teaching and learning resources

Resources were specifically developed to teach Indigenous languages in early childhood education and Kindergarten to Grade 12 classrooms.

Eligibility

Instructor Development projects

Applications for this stream were open to First Nations colleges and universities and Indigenous organizations that had a primary mandate to support early childhood education and Kindergarten to Grade 12 language instructors in Indigenous languages.

Resource Development projects

This was a competitive application process. Only a maximum of 2 approved projects per organization were allowed under this stream.

Organizations that had expertise in developing Indigenous language resources were considered, including:

• Indigenous organizations
• First Nation and Métis communities
• provincial school jurisdictions and post-secondary institutions that partner with First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities