The Education Minister says his department “absolutely” will be updating the K-12 curriculum on residential schools and Indigenous history.

That comes in the wake of the discovery of 215 unmarked children’s graves at a former residential school in British Colombia.

Tom Osborne says his mandate letter, which was received in April, outlines the need to revise and update current courses, and create new curriculum around Indigenous culture, traditions, and history.

In fact, Osborne says some updates have already been done over the last five years around Indigenous communities. Osborne notes that residential school history is taught throughout five grades of social studies, the most in-depth of which is in grade seven.

He says that’s a start, but admits more needs to be done.

Osborne notes that there is a committee that consults with Indigenous communities on developing curriculum. They will be working with those groups on how to move forward, as they want the curriculum to be specific to this province.