we address issues of language of instruction in schools in terms of efforts to retain heritage languages and to ensure that students acquire the national languages of commerce and higher education we also address indigenous education focusing on efforts to increase indigenous control over education and new ways to use and transmit that indigenous knowledge and ways of teaching and learning whether within or external to the formal school systems and finally we look at student achievement issues focusing especially on the gender gap between females and males and on the continuing underperformance of indigenous students across much of the north