Nunavut progressing on Education Act implementation, Quassa says

Education minister Paul Quassa says the GN is making progress in addressing the issues identified by the OAG. (FILE PHOTO)

Nunavut’s education minister, Paul Quassa, says the territory has taken several important steps to address the findings of the Office of the Auditor General on the implementation of Nunavut’s Education Act.

The auditor general’s 2013 report concluded that “the Government of Nunavut’s department of education has not adequately managed most aspects of implementation of the Education Act.”

In the report, the auditor general’s office found the GN would not meet the 2008 Education Act goal of achieving a fully bilingual Inuktitut-English school system by 2019-20, citing a lack of qualified bilingual teachers.

The report pointed to poor attendance in school’s across the territory, with rates lower than 50 per cent in several schools.

The auditor general’s report also noted poor implementation of “inclusive education,” a process in which many students are socially promoted from grade to grade without having mastered the previous year’s material.

This, the report said, was happening without the required assessment or support for individual students.

To help remedy those issues, education minister Paul Quassa told the legislative assembly Nov. 3 that his department has developed a human resources database to capture information on both teaching and non-teaching staff, including language proficiency and ability to teach in more than one official language.

The database will be developed in three phases, Quassa said, with final completion planned for early 2015.

“This database will be instrumental in evaluating the current number of bilingual teachers in our system,” he told the assembly.

By early 2015, the department will have also completed an external review of inclusive education, which should provide the department with “valuable suggestions and recommendations on how to ensure the school staff are meeting the needs of our students,” Quassa said.

Nunavut’s education department is also planning for the launch of its literacy initiative in January, said the minister, by rolling out a training program to school administrators across the territory this fall.

Staff from each of the three regions have undergone a three-day training on benchmark assessment and literacy intervention.

“I am confident that these initiatives will help address the issues identified by the OAG and ensure that our students are well supported to acquire the knowledge and skills they need,” Quassa said.