Iqaluit-Manirajak MLA Adam Arreak Lightstone says graduates of Nunavut Arctic College’s teacher education program need more dedicated hiring support, like resume writing and interview preparation, before entering the workforce. (Screenshot courtesy of the Nunavut legislative assembly)
MLA asks if Nunavut Arctic College teaching grads are getting hired
Graduates get ‘very little help’ entering job market, says Iqlauit-Manirajak MLA Adam Arreak Lightstone
Graduates of Nunavut Arctic College’s teacher education program need more support from the college to get jobs close to home, Iqaluit-Manirajak MLA Adam Arreak Lightstone says.
“It has come to my attention that graduates of the teacher education program get very little help to prepare them to enter the labour market,” Lightstone said in the legislative assembly Friday.
He specified that the college has no dedicated support for resume writing and interview preparation.
Graduates of the program have an important understanding of Nunavut’s unique way of life, and in many cases Nunavut-trained teachers also have language abilities that will help fulfill the territory’s language obligations, Lightstone said.
“Nunavut Arctic College’s teacher education program should be playing a key role in helping to fill Nunavut teaching jobs with Nunavummiut,” he said.
There were 81 vacant teacher positions in the territory heading into the 2023 school year, Education Minister Pamela Gross told CBC News in August.
Lightstone told the legislature there “seems to be” a lack of communication between the college and the Department of Education to identify potential job candidates based on the individual’s “backgrounds, strengths and interests.”
“A great deal of time and effort and resources are put into delivering accredited programs to educate, train and certify teaching professionals,” he said.
“However, that success is limited by the lack of supports to ensure that youth graduates can then access employment opportunities.”
Lightstone asked Daniel Qavvik, the minister responsible for Nunavut Arctic College, why the college’s annual report does not include statistics on employment rates for graduates.
“I keep asking the same question because that is a standard key performance indicator amongst post-secondary institutions in Canada and internationally,” Lightstone said.
Qavvik shared the number of teacher education program graduates from each year dating back four years: nine graduates in 2019, four in 2020, eight in 2021, 19 in 2022 and six in 2023.
He did not provide specifics on the number of students hired after graduation because he said the college is not involved in hiring processes.
Qavvik said he would follow up with the college and the Department of Education about hiring rates and what support exists to improve students’ success in job interviews, national exams and job screenings.
“As the only post-secondary institution in Nunavut, we want our students to succeed,” he said.
Let’s streamline the hiring system too.
Teaching, like many professional positions, has become a nightmare to apply to. Complicated, convoluted, and time consuming.
“in an effort to minimize mishires, many companies have adopted extensive hiring processes, which one of us (Tyler Cowen) and co-author Daniel Gross … describe as a bureaucratic method to hiring that we believe is as damaging a form of inefficiency as mishires themselves.” – Harvard Business Review
Top heavy, overly bureaucratic operations are pushing away good talent in favour of people desperate enough to deal with these hiring processes. That can’t work with a career like teaching because it lacks the income, security and most importantly the RESPECT that a lawyer or executive would get.
I wouldn’t teach if you HANDED me the job.
Get reel Adam. If these nunavut certified teachers graduatring from teacher school then they shoud be able to write a resume. does nunavut want to higher teachers who kan not make a resume? no wonder y we going back to ancient ways
I think you do not really understand what the MLA is saying. We have expert resume writing and even people with masters degree also enhance their resumes. It does not mean that the graduates can’t write their resumes. What the MLA is talking about is professional resume preparation and this is where the support becomes necessary. Universities in the South also provide the support the Adam is referring to. This has nothing to do with condemning the NTEP but rather how to support the graduates…
“graduates of Nunavut Arctic College’s teacher education program need more dedicated hiring support, like resume writing and interview preparation, before entering the workforce.”
No offense but if you can’t write a resume without help or sit through an interview, how in gods name do expect to teach skills skills to our kids? Sounds like the program is just as bad as grade school in Nunavut and they graduate students who have no business graduating.
I”m curious to see how the Arctic College president will respond. Most of the NTEP graduates that I saw finishing the program, didn’t work long in the schools, they all got head hunted by the mines, government administrative jobs; more money, less responsibility maybe. Not many of them were teachers at the end of their training.
Wondering if this will be an ongoing issue for Nunavut. Also, all the Iqaluit jobs like higher up jobs,
directors and managers, they are all advertising local only (Iqaluit) does the government of Nunavut really think they are going to hire locals for these managerial positions? Time will tell.
They can get managers and directors locally, it they promote from within. If you have someone qualified and already familiar with the work of the positions subordinates they are probably a better pick then someone from down south who will be to likely to change things for no reason other then their own preferences.
They would still have to advertise the jobs in most cases though.
I have a relative the went though NTEP, she was a great teacher, had a passion for it, but got frustrated and tired of the lack of support from the schools administration. When she spoke up about other teachers short comings she got singled out. She found a new job after 4 years of teaching.
A friend’s wife went though NTEP, was a one of the better teachers at her school, all the students loved her after 6 years she wanted to take a year off without pay and work a different job. The Education Department denied her request so she resigned her job as a teacher and has no plans of returning.
These are just a couple of the examples out of many, I imagine most people are afraid of speaking out about the horrors of working for the GN for fear of not being able to retain work within the GN in the future. Remember the GN is still the major employer in Nunavut directly and indirectly.
Forget about why they are not getting the teaching jobs in Nunavut, try to figure out why after receiving a degree from a recognized university they can’t figure out how to write a resume. And if they do not have a degree from a recognized university why would you want them teaching our children?
Why not do a follow-up with all grads since the NTEP course started? Show us the stats, how many actually go into teaching positions. By the way, Family Services provides Career Development Officers to resume writing and interviewing skills — is this not correct? There are also NGOs that provide that type of service.
Apparently we don’t do statistics in Nunavut, we intuit the answers to important questions. This is a serious gap that needs to be addressed as it allows for a lot of sub-standard guess work.
About a dozen years ago NAC produced a large graduating class of social workers. Guess what, When they graduated the GN was not hiring any social workers.
.
“I do my job. I don’t talk to anyone.” The GN paid more than $1,000,000 to put each of those people through school and then through college. Then it ignored them. What a waste, all around.
A dozen years ago; hmm, maybe you’re right. Quite possibly.
Maybe some of the graduates chose not to work, starting a family instead. Maybe some went into a different profession. Social Work can be VERY demanding.
Maybe some left the territory. Maybe some chose not to work, period. Do you have more info, Former Insider?
I think nowadays the essence of any school program is to instill critical thinking skills, especially in the teacher education program.
You would think with the knowledge gained in the NTEP program would help you connect the dots into creating a well-crafted resume and cover letter, and even more simply do a Google search on resumes or curriculum vitae, and answer interview questions spot on, but something is still missing there.
Perhaps several of the NTEP graduates never completed their high school, or have stayed within their homestead.
If we really want to stop being hungry, stop being homeless, and start being able to afford our own stuff, the Territory has to invest solely on the public school students and the prospective teachers that will fill an all important role in the future!
This will unlikely happen in the near future because the parents and the children do not see the value of education, quality education that could sustain your life and livelihood. So then, we will just continue to suffer with poverty, homelessness, and other social ills that are quite preventable with a little education. Se la vie
If you’re not certain part of Canada; good luck….
i got a bachelor DA in Fur Education certification and no one hiring me as engineer.