We need more resources, not less responsibility: Nunavut DEAs

Terry Young, president of the Nunavut Teachers Association, says the demand for bilingual teachers across the territory continues to be a problem because teachers can often get lower-stress, higher-paying jobs in the public service. But the GN and the association are together trying to improve working conditions for teachers in an effort to improve retention. (FILE PHOTO)

Local education authorities in Nunavut need more money and resources to carry out their responsibilities — not a reduction in those responsibilities, as education department managers suggest.

That was the message the Coalition of District Education Authorities delivered to MLAs in the Nunavut legislature May 14.

“We’d like to see adequate resources and increased funding, so that DEAs can do their duties under the Education Act,” Nikki Eegeesiak, the coalition’s executive director, told Nunatsiaq News May 15.

“We support implementing what’s in the current act.”

The MLAs created a special committee to review Nunavut’s Education Act in June 2014. The committee travelled to a number of communities recently seeking input on a new and improved act.

The two-day hearing in Iqaluit, which ended May 14, offered organizations and individuals who submitted written suggestions a chance to appear before the committee.

Nunavut’s deputy minister of education, Kathy Okpik, addressed the committee May 13 and suggested elected officials change the act to reduce the roles and responsibilities of the DEAs, while increasing the power of the education minister.

Specifically, the department said current DEA duties with respect to bilingual education, inclusive education and the hiring of vice-principals and principals is creating too much variability across the territory and is tricky to manage.

“A system with such variability is extremely difficult to administer and even more difficult to evaluate,” Okpik told the committee May 13.

Eegeesiak said that after the Education Act came into effect in 2008, the responsibilities of DEAs were increased but that did not come with a corresponding increase in money or staff.

“With respect to our mandate and the partnership that is laid out in the act between the department, the DEAs and the school operations, we remain strong on the fact that both the DEAs and the coalition are understaffed and underfunded to fulfill their obligations,” she said.

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., which also appeared before the legislature May 14, agreed with Eegeesiak.

In fact, NTI said those funding shortfalls are contributing to some of the larger problems currently facing Nunavut’s education system.

“The Coalition and the DEAs are the avenues where Inuit parents feel most connected with education. Being responsive to Inuit parents is one of the key factors in improving the education system,” NTI said in its opening remarks May 14.

The lack of adequate funding and resources for DEAs, coupled with their increased administrative responsibilities, have eroded the trust Inuit parents have with the education system, NTI said.

And that, in turn, has resulted in low attendance rates.

“Although the decline of attendance rates is not attributable to any single factor, the unresponsiveness of the Department of Education to disenfranchised parents did not help.”

NTI’s recommendations to the special committee largely focused on bilingual education, suggesting, among other things, that regulations ensure daycares and preschool programs include compulsory Inuit instruction 50 to 75 per cent of the time.

Terry Young, president of the Nunavut Teachers Association, went a step further, pointing out the need for more bilingual teachers throughout Nunavut.

“I know the government wants to meet its bilingual goals by 2019-2020, but the problem is attracting enough strong bilingual teachers in order to do that,” Young told Nunatsiaq News May 15.

Many of the highest qualified teachers end up taking government jobs instead, Young said, which tend to be less stressful and more lucrative.

But Young said cooperation between the association and the GN has been strong in recent years, resulting in better working conditions for teachers.

“I think the key for me is that the working conditions that teachers have are the learning conditions for our students, and that’s very important.”

The special committee examining the Education Act was born out of a November 2013 report, issued by Canada’s Auditor General, which said, among other things, that the Government of Nunavut’s 2008 Education Act had set unrealistic goals and would fall short of lofty milestones it had set for 2019-2020.

The committee plans to table its findings in the legislative assembly in the fall of 2015. At that time, according to past practice, the 40 or so written submissions which formed the basis of recent hearings will also be made public.