Upgrading means slow student progress: Arctic College dean

During her Feb. 23 keynote address to the Sivuniksamut Ilinniarniq teachers conference, Fiona Buchan-Corey, dean at Cambridge Bay’s Nunavut Arctic College campus, said students’ weak academics mean many must upgrade before continuing on with their education. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

CAMBRIDGE BAY — Many students graduating from Kitikmeot schools can’t move ahead into post-secondary studies because they lack the necessary reading and math skills, Fiona Buchan-Corey, dean at Cambridge Bay’s Nunavut Arctic College campus, said Feb. 23 in her keynote address to the Sivuniksamut Ilinniarniq teachers conference.

“The biggest issue [facing the NAC] is the academic readiness” of students who want to further their education, Buchan-Corey told teachers from Kitikmeot schools meeting in Cambridge Bay this week.

As it stands now, the Cambridge Bay campus devotes more than $965,000 of its budget towards offering upgrading courses, she said.

But the NAC wants to promote its certificate and diploma programs, such as a licensed practical nurse program, which is in the works.

“For us to be successful,” the region’s schools must be more successful, she said.

The NAC’s plan to offer a maternity care worker program, designed as a training platform for Inuit midwives, stalled for two years due to a lack of qualified applicants, who are supposed to be at a Grade 12 skill level, she said.

Finally, the college offered a college foundation program this year for interested applicants — of these, three will be academically ready to enter the maternity care worker program next fall.

But Corey-Buchan said she’s worried about the fate of the college foundation program, which many need.

A review of Nunavut’s FANS student assistance program, called for by the Auditor General of Canada, may determine that this program cannot be considered a post-secondary program because its students are generally doing Grade 10 to Grade 12 level work.

And this would deprive its students from receiving full financial aid.

“This would have a huge impact on the majority of students,” she said.

After Buchan-Corey’s speech, teachers broke off into five groups to discuss ways they could integrate suggestions from the previous day’s speaker Hetty van Gurp, with Buchan-Corey’s call for higher academic skills.

Suggested actions included establishing elders and student advisory committees, mentoring clubs and adopting monthly themes for schools which focus on “lessons for living.”