School’s on, but many Nunavut classrooms still missing teachers

John Arnalukjuak High School in Arviat is among the Nunavut schools still looking to fill a teaching position although school started weeks ago. (FILE PHOTO)

Students have been back at school for weeks in some Nunavut communities, but some students don’t have teachers yet.

That’s because, Nunavut-wide, 63 teaching positions remain to be filled, according to Nunavut’s education department.

The shortage means substitute teachers have been called in, classes have been combined and in Kimmirut, kindergarten hasn’t yet begun, the department said Sept. 22.

The need for a teacher prompted a principal from one school to post the job on social media in an attempt to entice someone with the qualifications to take the well-paying job at his school—and the subsidized housing that goes along with it.

A shortage of teachers was also on the mind of South Baffin MLA David Joanasie Sept. 18 in the Nunavut legislature when he asked Education Minister Paul Quassa why some classes still lacked teachers in Kimmirut.

“I have been informed by one of my constituents that their child is not able to start school yet because there is no teacher for their class,” Joanasie said during question period.

Quassa said out of a total 796 teaching positions in Nunavut, “we are still short 54 positions”—a number that’s nearly 10 lower than the department’s more recent number of vacant teaching positions.

The shortage, Quassa said, had delayed the start of kindergarten in Kimmirut, although the process of filling the vacant positions at Kimmirut’s Qaqqalik school is underway.

Five positions still need to be filled there, the education department’s break-down of numbers shows.

When teaching positions are vacant, sometimes two classrooms are combined into one, Quassa said.

“It’s called temporarily combining classes. Sometimes we look for support workers who are not teachers as substitute teachers. Sometimes school support teachers are put in temporarily as teachers while we’re looking for full-time teachers,” he said.

Any shortage of teachers would not affect the number of hours that students are expected to remain in school, he told Joanasie.

According to the job search website, EducationCanada, there are many Nunavut teaching positions that have still not been filled, including one at the John Arnalukjuak High School in Arviat, posted Sept. 21, which pays an annual salary of $73,528 to $115,291.

The only schools in Nunavut that don’t need more teachers are in Whale Cove, Kugaaruk, Taloyoak, Baker Lake and Iqaluit’s Ecole-des-Trois-Soleils, the education department said.

The communities that are still looking for the most teachers include Kimmirut and Arctic Bay, which both need to fill five vacancies, and Hall Beach and Pond Inlet, which each have four-and-a-half teaching positions to fill.