Inuit Nunangat University receives $1M grant to train teachers
Rideau Hall Foundation supports launch of Faculty of Silatursarniq, focused on education
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami has received a $1-million grant from the Rideau Hall Foundation to help establish the Faculty of Silatursarniq at Inuit Nunangat University, as announced on July 17. The planned faculty will focus on Inuit-led teacher training. (File photo)
Inuit Nunangat University has received $1 million to help make its planned faculty of education a reality.
The Faculty of Silatursarniq — Inuktitut for “the process of becoming a wise person” — will focus on Inuit-led teacher training, said a July 17 news release from Rideau Hall Foundation announcing the grant.
Rideau Hall Foundation president Teresa Marques said the foundation is confident in the direction Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami is taking Inuit Nunangat University.
“We are very comfortable getting behind ITK’s work on this,” Marques said in an interview.
“Now is the time for the philanthropy community to come in with trust that this is going to evolve with the right people coming to the table, doing that work to actually put in place kind of the roadmap.”
The faculty is still in its early stages and no course curriculum or syllabus have been released.
Representatives from ITK did not make themselves available to provide further comment on the faculty or funding.
The idea for Inuit Nunangat University — created for Inuit by Inuit, and located within Inuit lands — dates back to 2011. The national Inuit organization adopted the idea in 2017 and began earnest work on it.
A draft overview of Inuit Nunangat University outlines plans for seven faculties including education, governance, Inuktut and social work.
The faculty of education will deliver a university-level program to new Inuit educators “who are deeply grounded in Inuktut, Inuit values, and local community contexts,” said the news release from Rideau Hall Foundation.
It is also expected to provide training in areas such as mental health, addictions support and community wellness.
The goal is to train between 50 and 100 Inuit teachers within the first 10 years of the program, the release said.
ITK received a $50-million contribution toward the university from the Mastercard Foundation in 2024. Earlier this year, it opened an application process for communities interested in hosting its main campus.
There is no timeline announced for when ITK’s board of directors will announce where the main campus will be located. Later this year, the organization will reveal which communities applied, an ITK spokesperson said in May.
On its website, the Rideau Hall Foundation describes itself as a nation-building charity.
The foundation is also providing $479,000 to the Nunavut Bilingual Education Society to support development of Inuktitut literacy resources for current educators, the news release said.
Can’t even train inuit teachers in elementary school , preschool or even daycare and they want to train university teachers? Or professors? This is insane.
are you in education filled and do you speak Inuktitut or teach Inuit culture. If you do I like to get see your solutions to these challenges you write about.
That’s the GN and Nunavut Arctic college, our GN can’t or will not get their crap together to produce teachers or anything else that Nunavut needs to fill positions within government including schools.
The NTEP has been broken for decades and the collage has done very little to address it.
This will be run outside of the GN so we are hopeful it will work much better, as most of us know, the GN whatever it touches turns into a gong show, a cercus, a bunch of clowns running our GN with a huge 3 billion dollar annual budget. If Nunavut wants to do anything meaningful it has to do it outside of the GN, or it will become another clown show.
Is that your personal opinion and experience as an educator or parent of a student that are taught by Inuit.
Not sure if ITK knows that there are university and colleges all over Canada already.
Errrr….wait. My bad… there are basic entrance exams.
Apparently many Nunavut high school “graduates” can’t pass to enter.
Some can’t make it through special Ed Nunavut Sivunniqsavut.
I went through Special ED NS program and I used as a spring board to get into university and I got my honours degree from my university. Thanks for your support and understanding educational challenges in Nunavut. Now do you have a culture understanding of Inuit in Nunavut, do you spend time with an Inuk family or out on the land with an Inuk family and are you learning Inuktitut and cultural practices? I am pretty sure that would be a challenge for you if you’re non Inuk
If you have studied at NS and are Inuk, you should know that Inuit is plural and Inuk is singular, maybe they are in the west where the dialect is Innuinaqtunn and not Inuktitut
I am talking to one individual jenius.
Judging by your grammar you should return your Honors Degree or your uni needs to up its standards
Will the students pay like international students do? Holding part time jobs to pay for tuition and books, accommodation and so on?
(Rhetorical question)😂🤣🤪
You should attend as you can have a better understanding of history, cultural, economic and social challenges that Inuit face in Canada and other indigenous group and make an inform comment when you finish
The goal is to train between 50 and 100 Inuit teachers within the first 10 years of the program, the release said. 🤣🤣🤣 so realistically 25?
A basic waste of money.
so you say! but you’re not affected by it in anyway.
Our Inuit organizations have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars just sitting in bank accounts. Nothing gets done. It takes forever. They just talk and talk and study and study and report and report and photo op and photo op.
Now they want to take some more grant money to train University teachers to speak our language. Really? Like one commentor already said, training is lacking at the very basic preschool, elementary, high school etc… levels. But just like always let’s make sure we do not have our priorities straight. The way our Inuit organizations and government manage is akin to prioritizing the building of a shed in your yard after your house has burnt down. They need to apply some “Silatursarniq — Inuktitut for “the process of becoming a wise person”…. right within ITK.
A cool million is good for a few teachers maybe 4 in nunavut time amd costs. Need more money for our own inuit and he got a million . Whats hapoen to his leadership ?
If ITK is successful and establishes a University in Inuit land, and opens a Faculty of Education, I wonder what will happen to the Nunavut Arctic College Teacher Education Program?
It would seem to me that if Inuit interested in becoming a teacher in Nunavut can enroll in Inuit Nunangat University to become trained, then Nunavut really does not need to run the NTEP program anymore.
The GN spends around $40m a year funding NAC, with all NAC education and early childhood programs representing almost half of this figure.
If NAC continues to deliver NTEP when an ITK University is operating, there would be some level of duplication of effort.
If NAC discontinues NTEP, will the GN still support Teacher education by funding the new University to deliver this program?
If the GN funds an Education program outside of Nunavut instead of NTEP (the University could be in Kuujjuak or some other place which seems likely considering where the GG is from), will that be a good use of GN funds ?
It would have been nice if NN would have reached out to GN or NAC to explore how this will work.
Much of the Cuban population was illiterate when Castro came to power in Cuba in 1959. A literacy campaign was organized in 1960-1961. Students as young as 10 years of age, and workers, were quickly trained to teach basic reading. The schools were closed and about 140,000 of these “teachers” went were they were needed, teaching others to read. The project took 1 year. At the end of that year, most people in Cuba could read at at least a basic level.
Training 100 teachers in 10 years is a cya target. These would be teachers for all of Nunagaat. It would not even produce enough teachers to replace those who will retire in Nunavut during those 10 years.
Another example.
Norman Bethune was a Canadian who founded a medical school in China. His students were illiterate and did not understand English. But using a translator, Bethune turned those students into battlefield surgeons in 8 weeks.
He proved that when special education is really needed, it can be done.
Natan, it’s time to start over to produce a better plan.
This “university” idea of ITK is hilarious, if not more, than when the Nunavut Ledge went power nuts and decided to create their own time zone.🤣🤣🤣
Another ‘genius'(sarcasm) idea was that Nunavut residents get their mail every day and the ledge created an Eskimo Airline. Lasted like three months.😂🤣😂😅🥳🥳
I hope Nunavut is not demanding door to door mail delivery.🤯
I am pretty sure they said that kind of stuff when Indigenous people starting creating curriculums for Indigenous Studies programs in the 70s and 80s, people like you are lethargic no inspiration or aspiration to changes things just stick with the status quo that isn’t working
At an accredited university officially recognized by a governing or professional body in Canada, it will take 4 years to get a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW).
Costing from $5,000 – $9,000 per year (housing, food, transportation extra). Entry-level southern salaries are $50k.
To get a Master of Social Work (MSW), it will take two more years. Unless you have other acceptable degrees. Entry-level southern salary $65k.
To get a Social Service Worker (SSW) diploma, one would attend a community college for 2 years at a cost of $4,000 per year. Entry-level southern salary $35k.
What is interesting, the southern universities list the Indian Rupee for international students. International tuition fees are 3-5 times higher than Canadian.
Example: University of Toronto. For a BSW, a Canadian will pay $6,100/year tuition.
An international student from India will pay $54,000/year plus living costs of $20K per year in Toronto. A four-year tuition plus living costs will cost the international student $296,000.
Canadian tuition alone for 4 years is $24,400, and for international student is $216,000.
Would international students pay $350,000 to $450,000 for 4 years at the Arctic university (plus living costs)?
Out of the 1,040,985 international students (2023) and a ballpark estimate of hundreds to a thousand possibly taking BSW, would the Arctic university aggressively attract 3 to 7 tuitions per year? Big chunk of $$$s.
Makes one wonder if the GN will sweeten the pot to support the Arctic University by guaranteeing international students jobs after completion?
You just need teachers who already know and love the subjects they’re teaching and who can pass on their enthusiasm. Teacher training wastes time and money and is ineffective except for driving away those who would be good at it but who can’t take the BS. Meantime, Canada needs certified trades people …
are you talking from experience or that’s your assumption? Some of the best teachers I dealt with are Inuit who live and care for language and culture. Just because you don’t speak or understand Inuit culture doesn’t make what you say is true.
I get people commenting concerns above but remember this university isn’t only for Nunavut, it’s Inuit Nunangat, which literally translation to “Inuit Lands” so ALL Inuit in Canada. not only Nunavut, all Inuit Lands, Nunavik, Labrador too. This isn’t a guarantee it’ll be in Nunavut. ITK represents all Inuit in Canada so we’ll have to see where they plan to place the University.
Costs are prohibitive in Nunavut, if we’re to be honest. I think it would make more sense to put it in Labrador.
The idea that Nunanagat University was going to give Inuit a chance to attend school without leaving home was always the self centered fantasy of the Iqaluit coffee scene.
It would be good for Nunavut Inuit to see other Inuit lands outside their own, and it would benefit people there to meet them.
“The idea that Nunanagat University was going to give Inuit a chance to attend school without leaving home was always the self centered fantasy of the Iqaluit coffee scene.”
Not at all. This has already been shown to work for adult Inuit wanting to gain a law degree at home without uprooting their families. No reason a university can’t have the same effect.
And how many of those students passed the bar exam, stayed in the North, and are practicing law in Nunavut? I’ll give you a hint: the word starts with a ‘z’.
Isn’t the DM of GN dept of justice an Inuk law grad?
Many Inuit with law degrees are working in Nunavut, despite the hurdles and they are as free as anyone to use their qualifications to benefit themselves, their families and Territory as they see fit.
All that said, it is clear that ITK did not seek to gather Inuit university graduates to advise or participate but instead brought in the same cliques that turned NS into a cultural theme park. I have no doubt this next abomination will suffer the same fate and lowly reputation.
There’s a difference between having a law degree and working as a bureaucrat and having a law degree, passing the bar exam, being called to the bar, and practicing law as a lawyer.
You don’t seem to understand that people take law degrees for all sorts of professional reasons other than practicing law in a court room. A law degree is a solid foundation to any number of different professions that make a positive difference to the territory.
To my mind, the nunavut law program should have been allowed to become permanent and have a new intake every year. The territory could use more legally trained Inuit. But that’s just me.
Sanikiluaq needs more certified teachers but the problem is, they keep walking out due to poor management. No one will listen of anyone makes a complaint. One person of responsible for all the chaos but there is no one who will listen.
The Government of Nunavut does not allow hiring family members exclusively for teaching positions, regardless of certification status.
While there are specific provisions allowing for hiring preference or exceptions in certain remote communities with a high proportion of Inuit residents, these do not extend to hiring family members exclusively or waiving certification requirements.
I agree Sanikiluaq needs more certified Inuit teachers. More Inuit should be trained. NTEP should reopen for a local training program without requiring people to move and leave their families behind. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity, but I don’t think there’s any chance because it hasn’t been announced in years. Schools are only hiring temporary substitute teachers because more and more teachers are walking out due to poor management. Please consider reopening NTEP local education programs.
So many non Inuit seem so threatened by this, good, it shows you are on the right path to building yourself up. Keep working towards this university and make it happen, never mind the naysayers.
No one feels threatened by this
How about physics, chemistry, geology, engineering and marine biology? Of course, students would need certain prerequisites, starting in primary school. No problem?!
There’s a template in Somaliland—find it on the map of Africa!—a residential school that takes in African students at about the age of 12. From having no knowledge of the language, it teaches them English and the schooling is sufficiently intensive that most students go on to university in the US. The name of the school indicates what it does. It’s the Abbaarso School of Science and Technology. Good description for schools in Nunavut?! See the website or read the book about it!
I sure hope this university will be working with the university in Nuuk Greenland, they have Inuit professors and that university has been doing very well, producing Inuit university graduates plus international students attending and graduating also.
It always amazes me that Inuit in Greenland can get so much more done especially in their government while we struggle so much with our own government here in Nunavut, I wonder what the difference is between us? Majority of the jobs in Greenland held by Inuit while we can’t even get Inuit taxi drivers here in Iqaluit let alone in higher positions. Something is not right here.