After 25 years, McGill replaced as degree provider for teacher training

For the first time in 25 years, a university other than McGill will grant degrees to graduates of the Nunavut Teacher Education Program.

The University of Regina will take over responsibility from the Montreal school when the current contract ends July 1. McGill's office of First Nations and Inuit education had provided curriculum and accreditation since the program's founding as the Eastern Arctic Teacher Education Program in 1981.

Nunavut Arctic College president Mac Clendenning said the switch to the University of Regina was done to save money.

"One of the things we needed to do was ensure the strategy remained affordable for the college," he said. "One of the differences between the two is that McGill's partnership was based on the number of courses that were delivered and the University of Regina partnership was sort of a flat fee that was not tied to enrollment."

Clendenning said McGill asked Nunavut Arctic College not to reveal exact details of its proposal. Donna-Lee Smith, director of the office of First Nations and Inuit education, didn't respond to two interview requests from Nunatsiaq News.

The change came as a result of the July 2006 publication of Qalattuq: 10 Year Educator Training Strategy. NAC, along with education department staff, struck a working group that put out a call last September for submissions for the teacher education program. Six schools replied and the final two candidates were McGill and the University of Regina.

One of Qalattuq's goals is to double within three to five years the number of teaching graduates Nunavut Arctic College produces.

Education minister Ed Picco said "the whole point of that exercise is to reinvigorate the NTEP program." The hope is to help the Government of Nunavut follow the advice of land claim conciliator Thomas Berger, who in a March 2006 report recommended a sweeping overhaul of the territory's education system with the goal of producing fluently bilingual students.

"To be able to make that bilingual education model come true, I need to have Inuktitut speaking teachers in grades [9-12] and that's what I don't have right now," Picco said.

The deal with the University of Regina lasts five years, enough time for a full wave of students to pass through the program, Clendenning said. Students whose degree programs overlap the two contracts will have all their McGill credits honoured by the University of Regina.

"The staff are our staff," Clendenning said. "We deliver the curriculum and basically the University of Regina provides a block transfer of credits into their degree program."

Arctic College doesn't grant its own degrees, but contracts the accreditation to schools in the South.

McGill has been accrediting education degrees for Inuit and First Nation communities since the 1970s when it began working with the Kativik School Board in Nunavik and then Arctic College in the early 1980s. Programs in Cree, Algonquin, Mohawk and Mi'kmaq communities followed.

The University of Regina already provides native teacher education programs in Northern and urban Saskatchewan and the Yukon.

Clendenning said there are no hard feelings toward McGill.

"It was a good partnership and they certainly provided a great service," he said.