DEAs want better results from schools

I’m not sure the headline “DEAs dump on GN” accurately captured the focus of the meeting between DEAs that was held earlier this month in Iqaluit.

When DEA chairpersons met in Iqaluit to discuss the new Education Act, the first question we asked ourselves in a day-long workshop was “what results do we want to see achieved in our schools different from what we see today?”

We broke into four groups to discuss this question and then reported back. DEAs represent the voice of parents in our education system so it was no surprise that all four groups reported back with relatively similar lists of results they want from our education system:

* More students graduating with qualifications on par with the rest of Canada;
* More students graduating with a clear sense of Inuit societal values, culture and heritage as well as local customs and dialect;
* More trilingual students at all grades;
* More qualified Inuktitut language teachers;
* More research on how our schools are doing;
* More informed parents and community leaders on hour our students and schools are doing;
* More teachers who are sensitized to Inuit values, knowledge, culture and heritage;
* Discipline approaches that are consistent with Inuit values;
* DEAs with authority to achieve the education goals of their schools;
* Curriculum that is flexible to local practices and dialect.

It was very interesting to hear the experiences of the minority francophone community in Canada who share similar goals to ours in the education system. They have achieved many of these goals in just 30 years, and one of the key elements of their success has been local control of their schools.

It is not nostalgia for school boards that is driving DEAs to talk about local control – it is because local control places responsibility in our communities for the success of our schools. We have lots of examples in Nunavut where communities control their own affairs – municipal services and wildlife, to name just two. Parents are now saying, once again, “why not schools?”

Christa Kunuk
Chair, IDEA
Iqaluit