Nunavik sees lower teacher vacancies as new school year begins

Updated on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026 at 12 p.m. ET

While Nunavik’s schools are still struggling with teacher vacancies, data from August show the Kativik Ilisarniliriniq school board has 18 fewer vacancies than the same time last year.

This is the lowest vacancy rate since 2021, according to numbers the board provided to Nunatsiaq News.

“Although the numbers fluctuate from year to year, looking at the past three years we may be seeing a trend towards a reduced number of vacancies at the start of the school year,” school board spokesperson Jade Duchesneau-Bernier wrote in an email.

“We are hoping that the competitive salaries and benefits will help decrease the number of vacant teaching positions further next year.” 

Before this year, teacher vacancy numbers in Nunavik since 2019 have been sitting between 51 and 84.

The newest collective agreement for teachers was signed in 2025. It adjusted bonus premiums which had not been updated since 2001. This school year is the first year when the new rates and bonuses are fully in effect.

Out of the 41 vacancies this year, 23 are in second-language teaching positions, and 18 are in the Inuktitut sector. All schools started the year with at least one school administrator in place. 

“The situation seems relatively better,” said Larry Imbeault, president of the Association of Employees of Northern Quebec.

However, he pointed out that there are still difficulties with employee retention because of clean water accessibility, noting that Inukjuak had a particularly difficult summer.

The teachers hired from the south “who go through these problems, they are not necessarily interested in continually living with them,” Imbeault said.

Both the school board and Imbeault acknowledge that there is a teacher shortage at a provincial scale that Nunavik has to deal with as well. There are 941 vacant teaching positions in Quebec, according to the Education Ministry’s statistics dashboard, which was updated on Aug. 31.

In the Nord-du-Québec administrative region, which includes Eeyou-Istchee and Nunavik, there are 55 vacant positions out of 741 total positions.

Imbeault says that the situation could have been further improved this year if the school board had adhered to an agreement made outside of the collective agreement to give bonuses to non-qualified teachers who signed up for university courses.

When teachers applied for the bonus, the board told them they needed to complete the courses to receive it.

“That is not what was negotiated,” said Imbeault, adding his union has filed a complaint. “This makes us look bad because it makes it seem that what we say is not what was negotiated.”

He added that some Nunavimmiut would have applied to positions thinking that having been registered to university courses could land them a bonus, but in fact did not.

Duscheneau-Bernier responded by saying that the new 2023-28 collective agreement builds on administrative measures that were already in place in the previous 2020-23 collective agreement.

Three retention premiums are offered to teachers in Nunavik. The one Imbeault referred to is the Pugunnautiqarutiit premium, which pays out $15,000 upon the signing of a first contract to employees working in Nunavik who either have a valid Quebec teaching permit or are enrolled in a qualifying academic training program.

Every non-legally qualified teacher has access to a $3,000 retention premium as well.

“We strive to support teachers in the process of qualification as they pursue their university studies,” Duscheneau-Bernier said. In 2024-25, 61 per cent of French-speaking teachers in Nunavik held a Quebec teaching licence, while English-speaking teachers were at 41 per cent, and Inuktitut speakers were at 24 per cent.

Editor’s Note: This article was updated to add information received from Kativik Ilisarniliriniq late on Sept. 10.