DEAs want to help GN get more education funding

The Nunatsiaq News deserves credit for their continued interest in covering the important issues surrounding our education system in Nunavut, particularly as we discuss what laws our new Education Act should contain, what role DEAs should play, and how our education system should be funded (Nunatsiaq News, August 18, 2006.)

As parents of children in the school system, we think that the quality of our education system should be the most important political discussion in Nunavut. We are not satisfied that our education system graduates only 25 per cent of our children and that the rate of graduation has declined in recent years.

This is why DEA chairpersons from across Nunavut agreed at a meeting in Iqaluit earlier this month to form a Coalition of DEAs, and unify our concerned voice so that it is heard in our legislature and in the negotiating room for our federal-territorial formula financing agreement.

In particular, we hope that the report issued earlier this year by Thomas Berger on Nunavut’s failing education system is not put on a shelf and ignored. Mr. Berger’s report is a thoughtful and detailed analysis of what level of investment is needed in our schools to produce different results from what we see today.

It should form the basis of negotiations with Ottawa for incremental funding to Nunavut because it has become obvious – seven years into division of the Territories – that the current budget for education spending in Nunavut is not graduating more students.

If our new Education Act reflects what the department has been researching in other modern pieces of education legislation, and reflects what they have been hearing across Nunavut, it will involve more spending on education. This must be taken into account in any formula financing discussion.

How we manage our schools, must also be re-structured so that communities have a real and meaningful role in the results of their schools.

As parents, we are saying that if nothing substantial changes in our new Education Act and formula financing, nothing will change in closing our alarming education gap.

Jeeteeta Merkosak
Chair
Coalition of Nunavut DEAs