This Major Research Project examines how education and training programs can evolve to improve employment outcomes and community prosperity for Indigenous people. This work also seeks to challenge graduation rates and employment as primary markers of success and position employment readiness and sustained career achievement as the new north star for these programs. While all levels of Government, Indspire, post-secondary institutions and other organizations have made significant strides in increasing Indigenous post-secondary participation and graduation (Indspire, 2024a), closable gaps remain in education, employment, and economic prosperity for Indigenous peoples in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2023a).

By analyzing how existing Indigenous education and training programming intersect with labour market trends and projections, this research will help propose an innovative approach to designing Indigenous education programs that focus on career pathways, not solely graduation. These programs should be co-designed cross-sectorally to proactively address labour market needs, anticipate emerging economic shifts and expand opportunities for First Nations, Inuit and Métis people, which will subsequently improve the Canadian economy (Assembly of First Nations, 2023). This project will rely exclusively on secondary research, drawing on Indspire reports, labour market forecasts, literature reviews from Indigenous organizations, program evaluations of existing Indigenous education programming and existing thought leadership in Indigenous education. The approach will favour Indigenous-led research and situate the findings within broader educational, economic and employment contexts. All sources will be analyzed to identify patterns and gaps, providing a foundation for developing program new models that better link education with employment outcomes.

Using foresight methods, business design tools, and strategic innovation frameworks, the project will develop scenarios, business model and program design options that reimagine Indspire’s role in building new bridges between education and employment, while also offering a template for other organizations. A central methodological tool will be the Indigenous Prosperity Programming Canvas, an adaptation of the Flourishing Business Canvas (Upward & Townsend, 2016) that replaces environment, society, and economy with culture, community, and prosperity, ensuring program models are evaluated and designed in ways that reflect the specific needs of Indigenous learners and respond to the needs of the Canadian economy. In doing so, the research contributes practically by informing Indspire’s strategic direction and program development, and theoretically by advancing foresight-driven, Indigenous-centered approaches to educational program design.