Parents, teachers slam Nunavut education act

Cambridge Bay’s Nunavut Arctic College hoped to offer degree programs in midwifery and nursing this year, but had to settle for a “foundations” upgrading course because many high school “graduates” don’t have the skills needed for degree programs. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

CAMBRIDGE BAY — At Kiilinik School in Cambridge Bay, you hear a lot of grumbling about Nunavut’s new education act and how its implementation has lowered the school’s academic standards.

You hear this from students, their teachers and their parents who say youth in their community deserve the best education possible.

“I have a big stake in this,” said Fiona Buchan-Corey, director of the local Nunavut Arctic College, and whose daughter attends Kiilinik.

The NAC has accepted high school graduates into programs — but then later discovered that their academic skills don’t meet basic standards.

The NAC was unable to recruit enough qualified applicants for its new programs in midwifery, nursing and trades.

Instead, some are now taking an upgrading program instead to prepare them for further study. The degree programs planned in midwifery and nursing are now likely to be downgraded into two-year certificate programs.

A disgruntled father of a teenage student at Kiilinik said he’s angry about changes to the school made in compliance with the new education law because he thinks they’ve watered down Kiilinik’s educational standards.

Kiilinik now “caters to underachievers,” by allowing students who don’t show up to pass, he said.

The result is Grade 12 students who have Grade 5 skills and an attitude that you don’t have to work to get through life to move ahead, he said.

“The whole system needs to wake up. There’s no responsibility or accountability,” he said.

As for teachers at Kiilinik High School, about half are new hires, and many of them are already unhappy, stressed and fed up, even though the school year has just started.

First, when they arrived in school, they were handed inaccurate class lists from 2009, they say.

Now that they have figured out who’s supposed to be in their classes, they say they’re still trying to figure out what academic levels they’re at.

That’s because there are no assessments of students’ reading, writing and math skills to help them evaluate their students’ knowledge, they say.

And, if there were, these would show big differences between their students because the students in their classes show huge variations in literacy and math skills.

Previously, students in Grade 7 to Grade 9 were put into different classes based on their skills in English and Math. In the higher grades, they were streamed depending on what level of the Alberta curriculum they followed.

If students failed classes in Grades 7 to Grade 9, they were allowed to take an extra year to complete the work. In high school, students failed their year if they didn’t pass their courses.

But now that’s changed: students are slotted into age-appropriate grades, no matter what level their reading or math skills really are.

This means some good students, with strong skills, may find themselves split up among classes. So, they’re forced to listen patiently while their teachers spend time explaining the same subject to peers who need more help.

Good students aren’t the only ones who suffer, because slower students must also sit while teachers deal with the group that’s moving faster.

These multi-level classes mean “the magic inclusion teacher will include the students and that we can do this without the program supports,” says a teacher.

Under this new system teachers say they also feel a lot of pressure to pass students.

As a result, grading is a practice some don’t take seriously, they say, citing the example of a teacher who threw popcorn on a computer screen graph to determine what grades to hand out to students.

As for grading, “it’s a joke,” they say.

To make multilevel teaching successful and to continue passing students from grade to grade despite a lack of progress would require more resources and less teacher turnover, teachers say.

Right now, they feel they’re failing to carry out parts of the new education act, which, like mandatory schooling until 18, are now law in Nunavut.

Graduation also fails students because it means little more than wearing a gown, eating a big meal and getting a piece of paper, some teachers say.

Only one in 14 of the recent graduates from Kiilinik actually prepared for the full load of Alberta academic exams (unlike high schools in the neighbouring Kitikmeot commuities of Gjoa Haven and Kugaaruk which do not even offer all the academic courses) and passed these exams.

Some graduates have passed only their English exam. Educational systems in the rest of Canada require students to pass all their final exams before they’re allowed to graduate.

Nunavut should establish another category of diplomas, similar to the “Knowledge and Employability” stream in Alberta, suggest teachers, which would mean graduates holding this certificate are ready to work, but not in jobs requiring strong academic skills.

As it stands now, many grads face frustration when they learn their Grade 12 can’t help them land them a job because they lack the necessary skills.

Faced with a number of staff absences, principal Connie Kapolak said she was too overwhelmed to talk about the challenges at her school or the criticism some people throw its way.

District education authority chairperson Bessie Joy said her volunteer DEA members also shoulder a heavy load, meeting long hours every other week to try to implement their responsibilities under the new Education Act.

Joy said she’s hoping a meeting of DEA chairs in Iqaluit next week will provide her group with more guidance about the delivery of education under the education act.