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If you're an Indian in your 20s living on a reserve, you need to leave right now.

Pack your bags, say goodbye to your family and friends and get out of there. If you live in Manitoba or Saskatchewan, do not head for Winnipeg or Regina or Saskatoon. Move to Toronto or Ottawa or Montreal. Find a job, any job, then get yourself back in school. This is the only chance you have to rescue what is about to become your wasted life.

Some people are going to find this advice offensive. And it doesn't apply to every native living on every reserve. But this has to be said: We have utterly failed to rescue the latest generation of on-reserve native Canadians. The least we can do is admit this, and urge those who can to save themselves.

This bleak conclusion comes from reading a new study by Michael Mendelson of the Caledon Institute, a social policy think tank. Mr. Mendelson came up with the inspired idea of studying the current education levels for aboriginal Canadians between the ages of 20 and 24 — those status Indians, non-status Indians, Métis and Inuit who should just be completing their education.

The study reveals that, while prospects for aboriginal Canadians living off reserve have improved considerably in many respects, the situation for the 30 per cent of aboriginals living on reserve hasn't improved at all. Every effort over the past generation to raise educational outcomes for on-reserve Indians has been a complete waste of time and money.

Among the general population, only 16 per cent of people between 20 and 24 haven't finished high school. For Indians 20 to 24 living on reserve, that number is 58 per cent. Actually, it's higher, since another 15 per cent have received some postsecondary education, but no certificate. Some portion of that group will certainly consist of young natives who dropped out of high school, eventually enrolled in some training course, but then gave up.

So a large majority of the latest generation of Indians on reserve has failed to complete high school. Most depressing of all, there is no evidence of any improvement between the 1996 and 2001 census.

“What do we suppose these young men and women will do with their lives as they grow older?” Mr. Mendelson writes. “What kind of social cohesion will be possible when the large majority of some segments of society will be excluded from normal economic participation? The only difference between this and the kind of disasters that grab headlines and emergency funds is that it will take longer for the destruction to become obvious.”

Off reserve, the news is much better. Young aboriginals living in cities have almost twice the high-school completion rates of those living on reserve (though they are still well behind the general population). Aboriginal students who do finish high school have the same postsecondary completion rates as the general population (75 per cent). While the average aboriginal income in Regina is only 60 per cent that of the general population (it's 63 per cent in Saskatoon and 66 per cent in Winnipeg), that figure is 80 per cent in Toronto, better than the figure for recent immigrants, while Ottawa comes in at 75 per cent and Montreal at 77 per cent.

It's a big risk to leave a reserve, move to the city and start life all over again. Aboriginal urban poverty is a large problem, and anyone who has tried to get an education while holding down a job knows how tough that challenge is.

But for the great majority of young Indians living on a reserve, this is the only realistic choice. The state has failed them, the community has failed them, their parents have failed them, and they have failed themselves.

What a terrible, terrible waste of an entire generation.jibbitson@globeandmail.com