Boosting Inuit education: ITK’s plan for the next 40 years

“Get your education, then you can buy your own quad and go out hunting,” was the advice that James Kuptana, a student at Trent University, said he used to receive from his grandmother in Sachs Harbour, during this week’s “From Eskimo to Inuit in 40 years” conference. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

OTTAWA — A Nov. 3 banquet featuring traditional Arctic foods prepared with a modern touch ended Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami’s 40th anniversary bash in Ottawa.

An entrée of “apple with smoked pan-crisp Arctic char with quinoa pan bread and crushed chorizo sausage” might also describe where ITK sits today, 40 years after its creation.

During its Nov. 1 to Nov. 3 conference, “From Eskimo to Inuit in 40 years” was similar in nature, the real meat was served up when panelists discussed the future of Inuit and their national organization.

And one word — education — best sums up that future.

Some of the founding members of Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, the forerunner to ITK, were on hand to talk about their early struggles to organize themselves.

These struggles mainly focused on gaining political recognition and negotiating land claims.

But that was the past.

This past still left many of the Inuit youth there in awe as they listened to Inuit leaders, past and present, such as Tagak Curley, the founding president of ITC, and Rosemarie Kuptana, also a former ITC president, people they have studied and heard about, but never seen before. Some of those youth included students at Nunavut Sivuniksavut.

The message from Curley was “stay in school, get educated” because “you’ve got to be qualifed to get the jobs done,” while Kuptana said Inuit must improve their literacy because that’s “how the world functions” today.

Young speakers at a Nov. 1 panel on the “voices and vision of Inuit youth,” agreed: Inuit need to embrace education.

They quoted Inuit elders to get their point across, and to make the jump between the traditional and the modern.

“Get your education, then you can buy your own quad and go out hunting,” was the advice that James Kuptana, a student at Trent University, said he used to receive from his grandmother in Sachs Harbour.

What she really meant, said Kuptana, is that you need to be educated to make your way in life.

The late Taamusi Qumaq of Nunavik said at 19 he had everything he needed in life for independence — a dog team and qamutik.

“I was able to work and to hunt,” said Qumaq, the author of an encyclopedia and a dictionary of the Inuttitut language.

Now, education can offer Inuit that same sense of independence that Qumaq felt, said Joey Flowers, a law student at McGill University.

Flowers, a Jane Glassco Arctic fellow, who expects to be the first Inuk lawyer from Nunavik, also studied to be a chef and holds a university degree in linguistics.

Flowers, along with the other panel participants, Kuptana, Jennifer Watkins, Rebecca Mearns and moderator Pujjuut Kusugak, had the same message: get an education and don’t let anyone tell you can’t do what you want.

“Never, never underestimate what you can do,” Flowers said.

Improving Inuit education is at the heart of ITK’s recently-released national education strategy, ITK president Mary Simon said.

The plan aims to improve student success in the country’s four Inuit regions by tackling low school attendance and graduation rates while producing more bilingual Inuit youth.

Simon said at the plan’s June launch that the cost of implementing its many recommendations has yet to be priced out, but that they would require a “new era of investment,” including money from the federal government.

Inuit language education in Canada is administered within two provinces and two territories.

ITK’s plan calls for the creation and funding of an Inuit Education Secretariat to carry out the implementation and administration of the strategy.

ITK is now raising money for the plan to bring to encourage government officials to chip in money for education, Simon said at the ITK conference.