<P> In 2011, reflecting on the TRC's research, Justice Murray Sinclair told the Toronto Star: "Missing children--that is the big surprise for me...That such large numbers of children died at the schools . That the information of their deaths was not communicated back to their families ." </P> <P> The TRC concluded that it may be impossible to ever identify the number of deaths or missing children, in part because of the habit of burying students in unmarked graves . The work is further complicated by a pattern of poor record keeping by school and government officials, who neglected to keep reliable numbers about the number of children who died or where they were buried . While most schools had cemeteries on site, their location and extent remain difficult to determine as cemeteries that were originally marked were found to have been later razed, intentionally hidden or built over . </P> <P> The fourth volume of the TRC's final report, dedicated to missing children and unmarked burials, was developed after the original TRC members realized, in 2007, that the issue required its own working group . In 2009, the TRC requested $1.5 million in extra funding from the federal government to complete this work, but was denied . The researchers concluded, after searching land near schools using satellite imagery and maps, that, "for the most part, the cemeteries that the Commission documented are abandoned, disused, and vulnerable to accidental disturbance". </P> <P> When the government revised the Indian Act in the 1940s and 1950s, some bands, along with regional and national Indigenous organizations, wanted to maintain schools in their communities . Motivations for support of the schools included their role as a social service in communities that were suffering from extensive family breakdowns; the significance of the schools as employers; and the inadequacy of other opportunities for children to receive education . </P>

Who came up with the idea of residential schools