Principal pushes for education program so school can recruit more teachers locally

Cambridge Bay needs a Nunavut Teachers Education Program so its elementary school, Kullik Ilihakvik, can recruit local teachers and hang on to its continuity and community roots, says principal Cathie Rowan.

Most teachers at the school have taught for more than 20 years. Many are reaching retirement age.

If NTEP doesn't produce a new crop of local teachers, Kullik's ranks are likely to be filled by young short-term hires from the South who won't know the children or Cambridge Bay.

So, there's more than just teacher turnover at stake – the future of the Inuinnaqtun language and culture is also in peril, Rowan fears.

Kullik offers 50 per cent Inuinnaqtun instruction in its kindergarten and two first grade classes. But when a teacher gets sick or leaves, the departure creates a hole that is only filled with difficulty.

A Grade 1 teacher had to go on leave shortly after the beginning of this school year, and that's why Dawn Williams, who has taught for 32 years, returned from retirement to teach for several weeks in Cambridge Bay – but she doesn't speak Inuinnaqtun and needs support from another teacher.

Two of Kullik's Inuinnaqtun-speaking teachers are also close to retirement. If new Inuinnaqtun teachers don't take their place, the school will have trouble maintaining its Inuinnaqtun-language instruction at even the current levels.

"To lose the language is a tragedy," Rowan says.

NTEP is currently only taught in Iqaluit. Bringing the program to Cambridge Bay would produce more Inuit teachers skilled in Inuinnaqtun, Rowan points out, because there is a core of Inuinnaqtun speakers in the community and in nearby Kugluktuk.

Inuinnaqtun language specialist Doris Angohiatok encourages Grade 5 students to learn by playing a game: she calls out "Aqtuglugu qingaq" and other body parts while the kids point to the appropriate place. They love it.

But only four in a class of about 15 say they hear Inuinnaqtun at home. A couple of students say they practice what they learn in class with their grandparents or other older relatives.

Angohiatok has worked at Kullik for 10 years. She says she'd love to take an NTEP program to become a full-fledged teacher and knows at least 10 others in town who also would take the program.

Since NTEP began 27 years ago, the program has produced more than 200 Inuit teachers, but the number of Inuit teachers working in Nunavut schools has dropped since 2000.

By the 2011-12 school year, the Government of Nunavut says it wants to bring 304 more Inuit into its schools, as part-time or full-time employees.

But to help Kullik, Cambridge Bay needs an NTEP program to start in the fall of 2008, because the program can take five years to complete, from its foundation year to the completion of a bachelor of education degree.

There's been talk of an NTEP program for Cambridge Bay, but no confirmation yet of when or if this will actually happen.