Inuit orgs welcome education strategy

Nunavut Premier Eva Aariak says her government has already implemented many of the recommendations found in a new Inuit education strategy, as the GN carries out its own Education Act in schools like Nakasuk elementary school in Iqaluit. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

Inuit organizations, including Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and Nunavik’s Kativik School Board, say they support the new national strategy on Inuit education, which wants to up graduating rates and produce more bilingual students.

“It’s obvious that the status quo isn’t working,” said Okalik Eeegeesiak, president of the Qikiqtani Inuit Assoc., who represented of NTI at the June 16 launch in Ottawa.

“Inuit are asking for equal opportunity to access education, training and development that are based on our own language and culture, which are privileges enjoyed by other Canadians.”

The strategy falls in line with NTI’s own vision for Inuit education when it calls for a stronger Inuit cultural focus built into school curriculum, she said.

Two years of consultations by federal, provincial, territorial and Inuit organizations contributed to the strategy, released June 16 by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

In addition to graduating more students grounded in Inuit language and culture, it urges Inuit regions to engage parents in education, expand early childhood education programs, and invest in local research.

Nunavut Premier Eva Aariak says the territorial government supports the strategy “in principle.”

Aariak, who also serves as education minister, told Nunatsiaq News that her government has already implemented many of the strategy’s recommendations as it puts the territory’s Education Act into action.

Aariak said she is “very proud” of delivering teacher education programs in 10 Nunavut communities, which have also produced 20 masters of education graduates.

The GN has also invested $1.6 million to support Inuktitut-language programs in the territory’s daycares, she noted.

But Aariak says she can’t support the creation of the Inuit Education Secretariat called for by the strategy until she knows what this would mean for her government.

First, she wants to see the cost of implementing the strategy, adding that the Government of Nunavut “doesn’t have the resources to spare.”

ITK president Mary Simon said June 16 that putting the report into practice would require new investments from the federal government and the private sector.

But the plan has yet to be priced out, she said.

When a 2006 study of Nunavut’s education system recommended bilingual schools for the territory, retired justice Thomas Berger estimated they would cost roughly $20 million a year to implement.