The Learning Center began in 1999 in the former Wee-Gwas Printing building. The BON Adult Learning Center is now located in the grey building behind the EAST Resource Building.
In 2002, when the Manitoba Learning Center Act came into effect, the Learning Center program had to partner with a school division or a community college. If we did not comply the Learning Center would not have been able to submit student marks to the Department of Education. The Learning Center partnered with the Sunrise School Division. Through this process the Learning Center was granted Stand-Alone Status in 2010.The Learning Center must follow the guidelines of the Manitoba Learning Center Act to remain registered with the province. Adult learners must be a minimum of 19 years of age to graduate from an adult learning center. One option requires 8 credits to graduate, of which 4 must be Grade 12 and the other 4 credits can be credits obtained from grades 9 – 12. Adult Learners can receive up to 4 literacy credits towards their Mature Status Diploma. Adult learners can do PLAR (Prior Learning Credits) for all the credits required to graduate. For a PLAR credit students must prove they have acquired the knowledge of specific high school credits either by life experience and/or work experience. To date there have been 10 PLAR credits granted. Adult learners must write the provincial exams in Math and English. The MB Adult Literacy Branch comes in once a year to do a site visit and make recommendations for improvements to the program. In addition, the BON Adult learning center staff must do annual reports to the province as needed.
BON Chief and Council have in the past directed the Adult Learning Centre Program to offer programs that are taught to provincial standards. Enroll students 17 years of age and older and pay incentives to students 18 years and older. When BON joined with the Manitoba First Nation School System a directive was given that the incentive would only be available to those students who are from a First Nations community.
The average age of students who register are between the ages of 17 – 60 years old and the average number of students who register on a yearly basis ranges from 35 – 50 adult learners. To date, there have been 19 graduates from the program, 18 are from Brokenhead and 1 from Sagkeeng. The Learning Center is funded through the Nominal Roll process with the Federal Government. There are currently only 2 Adult Learning Centres in First Nations in Manitoba that have attained stand-alone status.
