New census report looks at kids

Inuit kids are much more likely to speak an aboriginal language than North American Indian or Métis kids.

That’s one of the findings contained in Statistics Canada’s Portrait of Aboriginal Children Living in Non-Reserve Areas, which analyzed interview results from the parents of 227,000 aboriginal children under 14, a group that also includes all Inuit kids across Canada.

Inuit kids lag behind North American Indian and Métis children in some areas:

* Only about one-third of Inuit have attended a preschool program;
* Only one out of four Inuit children aged 6 to 14 read or were read to every day.

There were also “marked differences” in aboriginal language skills between Inuit and off-reserve North American Indian or Métis children.

Among Inuit under 14, about three out of four kids speak Inuktitut, but among off-reserve North American Indian kids, only one out of four can speak an aboriginal language and only about one out of ten Métis kids can.

The report says this difference is due to the remoteness of Arctic communities.

Nearly all Inuit children get help from their parents with Inuktitut and more than half receive help from their teachers.

Most of the Inuit parents felt it was very important to speak and understand Inuktitut, although only two out of three of the North American Indian parents and half of the Métis parents felt that way.

But among all groups, parents with higher levels of education are less likely to have children who can speak or understand an aboriginal language.

Nine out of 10 Inuit children whose parents had not gone beyond elementary school could speak or understand Inuktitut, but that ability to speak and understand Inuktitut drops to only five out of 10 for Inuit children whose parents have completed some post-secondary education, possibly because these institutions are often located outside of communities where Inuktitut is spoken.