Education department sits on crucial report for two years

PATRICIA D’SOUZA

An informative report setting out a 10-year plan to implement Inuktitut as the language of instruction in Nunavut schools has been sitting on a government shelf for the past two years.

Jack Anawak, the minister of culture, language, elders and youth, and Peter Kilabuk, the minister of education, released the report last week in a formal presentation involving teachers from across the territory, employees from the curriculum development department in Arviat, and Eva Aariak, the language commissioner of Nunavut.

However, the ministers failed to mention that CLEY commissioned the study in January 2000, and that the GN received the document, called Aajiiqatigiingniq, in December 2000.

In fact, in his introduction to the group, Anawak claimed the opposite, saying the departments commissioned the report “recently.”

“We had to do an internal review,” Kilabuk said in explaining why the report was held for two years. “A number of processes had to be completed. We had to seek cabinet approval.”

But he admitted the first time he mentioned the report to his colleagues in cabinet was during a retreat in Coral Harbour this past summer.

The result is that the long-awaited plan is already behind schedule.

The report, prepared by Ian Martin, a professor at York University in Toronto, sets out three stages toward creating a truly bilingual system that uses Inuktitut as its core.

By next month, the first stage supposed to be completed.

Stage I is described as a preparation period involving community planning and promotion of community-based bilingual education. It is supposed to focus on teacher development and other infrastructure components.

While Nunavut has embarked on some of these projects, they are by no means completed and won’t be much further along by the end of the year.

Yet, by January, at least by Martin’s projections, educators should be ready to embark on Stage II, which includes the selection of a community-appropriate model of education (of which he lists several in his report) and delivery of the model.

By 2010, Stage III kicks in, but it is mainly a time to assess and evaluate what has been put in place. The evaluation stage lasts until 2020 — the deadline the GN has set to make Inuktitut the working language of government.

Implementing the system is estimated to cost about $6 million a year for the life of the project — mainly for teacher training and curriculum development.

In the two years education department employees have been reviewing the report, Kilabuk says they have been concentrating on securing funding.

Yet, in that time they have received only $400,000 from the GN’s financial management board. “Negotiations are still ongoing,” Kilabuk said.

“We hope to have word from NTI and the feds before the next budget session in March.”

The most alarming aspect about the delay is that in the two years education department officials spent examining Martin’s report, they didn’t change a thing.

The report was released to the public in the same form it was presented to government, except that stickers were placed on the front page to cover the date.