Nunavut schools will get more help to address violence in ‘coming years’: education minister
Questions in legislature spurred by CBC investigation that found more than 1,000 cases of violence in schools
In the legislative assembly on Tuesday, Nunavut’s minister of education, David Joanasie, said more resources are coming to help schools support students who are exhibiting violence. (File photo)
Updated: Thursday, March 4, 2021 at 1 p.m.
With fewer than five guidance counsellors in schools across Nunavut, questions about support available to students who are experiencing trauma or exhibiting violent behaviour came up in the legislative assembly on Tuesday.
The questions, directed to the minister of education, David Joanasie, came from Kugluktuk MLA Calvin Pedersen, as a response to a recent investigation by CBC News, which reported there were more than 1,000 violent incidents in Nunavut schools last year.
Pedersen expressed concern that for schools to hire a guidance counsellor in Nunavut, they must give up a teaching position.
“It disturbs me DEAs [district education authorities] have to decide whether to sacrifice a teaching position … in order to hire guidance a counsellor to address mental health needs,” he said.
He asked the minister whether he would commit to revising this policy.
Joanasie said the department has taken a “hard look” at the school funding formula over a “good few years” and expects revisions to be made in the coming years, including increasing resources.
“Nunavummiut should be rest assured that my department is doing its very best with the resources that we do have to eliminate all forms of violence in our schools,” he said.
All Nunavut schools have a community counsellor who can provide mental-health support related to well being, resiliency, healthy lifestyles, promoting positive attitudes and regulating emotions, according to Joanasie.
Pedersen said his questions were in reference to the low number of formally trained guidance counsellors who can support students who have experienced trauma or are getting caught up in violence.
“Youth are our future and the lack of care for them now will magnify in the future,” he said.
In his statement, Pedersen listed social factors that contribute to in-school violence, like poverty, domestic violence or substance abuse in the home, and hunger.
“While our schools may not be able to address all these social issues at their roots, they should provide the resources to help our students deal with them,” he said.
The Government of Nunavut spent more than a year compiling the data that was included in CBC News’ investigation on school violence. CBC got the statistics on violence by getting the government to send a spreadsheet to schools, where they could report accounts of violence.
Even though the statistics were collected in 2020, a year when students were sometimes not in school because of the COVID-19 pandemic, over 1,000 accounts of incidents were recorded.
CBC reported that 971 of those were student-on-student incidents, 110 were incidents where students allegedly assaulted staff, and there were 12 allegations of staff assaulting students.
Joanasie said “there are things that our schools report on that might not necessarily be a violent incident,” but these still require attention from the department and a whole-of-government approach is needed to tackle the issue.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect how the Government of Nunavut collected the data it provided about incidents in schools.
Too much red tape, outdated policies and formula financing. The problem with the GN today, it has a “Southern” mentality in the way it operates and administers the entire operations. The policies can be changed if the GN wanted them to be changed for the betterment of Nunavut.
Time for the GN to put its BIG BOY pants on and start working for the people who elected them in office and whom was offered the GN positions. It is a shame that in todays world, that our Nunavut school system has to fight to get the proper protection for our students and staff. Just hire the Councillors in our schools. GET ER DONE!!!
Where the councillors be hired from. Do you suggest we hire them from our well educated pool in Nunavut? This southern mentality is larger then is appreciated. This is not Nunavut’s trouble from the south. This is Nunavut’s own trouble. If there’s no help from outside, it’s not going to get better, or is it? Who’s going to do what to make it better. The society needs to fix itself, but that’s not going to happen.
As usual, it seems frozen brains do the thinking in the north. Look, until the violence in the homes are addressed, there’s nothing will change. The government needs to address abuse, child neglect at the family level. Alcohol and drug abuse. That violence seen in school is not school made. It comes from dysfunctional living in houses of the abusers. There are no bad examples of abusers in school, like from teachers and other adults. It’s what the kid is witnessing and endured at home.
Count yourself lucky Yea right but don’t speak for all of us.
When I went to school there were scary and violent teachers. Inuit kids they thought little of so it wasn’t hard for them to mistreat us and the rest were intimidated into thinking they were not allowed to speak up.
Times have changed. Now the teachers do not want to speak up or use their names for the CBC report or on this site, I am sorry you were treated harshly by your teachers, but that does not mean the 12 year old in gym class can violently throw a basketball at his classmate, or strike his teacher. We can supply all the mental health, guidance support in the world to help the children, but if the community doesn’t make a move towards a respectful society, at all levels, the change is going to be depressingly slow. Or we wont have any teachers left here to hit.
From My View;=As an Elder of 76.== “abuse, child neglect at the family level. Alcohol and drug abuse ” That is ALWAYS the beginning.== The school violence is only when groups of the same act out the fear of NO HOPE!! The youngers know today what the elders and politicians do not. == They see another world on the internet that they are segregated from.
how about some vaccinations for the school staff? That’s something they could do right now.
Nunavut schools will get more help to address violence in ‘coming years’; did I read this right?
Considering shovel ready projects take a dozen years or so to come to fruition, I can’t even guess what the timeline would be for something being addressed in the “COMING YEARS”
Yes I thought about it and feel so proud that I teach my children well, getting them up in the morning and feeding them well, don’t waste my money on drugs and booze. Oh , I like my beer, but I love my children more then that. And I can have my sensible beer. I even tell my children to keep an eye open for the abused child amongst them. Violence in school comes from neglect at home.
Children are inwardly good, if they act out in school it is because there is stressful situations at home which need to be investigated and addressed. The home situation is where you should start looking. Counsellors in the school will not fix this, it will only help the child learn coping mechanisms. That is a band aid solution.
it can be because of over crowding in a home which is a major stressor amongst family members. Witnessing violence in the home which we all know that Nunavut has dismal statistics compared to the rest of Canada is another one. Substance abuse in the home, physical and sexual abuse unfortunately are other factors which need to be looked into and dealt with. Not pretty , but that is where one should start. Mental health , safe houses for abused women and children are needed in every Nunavut community, substance accessible abuse treatment centres in Nunavut is a must if you all want to tackle this. Time to get serious about this, put the money, expertise and time into this important matter, otherwise many of those children may later commit suicide, end up in jail, perpetuate the violence in their adult years. That is called multi generational trauma. Our children, grandchildren are our future. Lets break the multi generational trauma.
If people are reading this published letter around the world, most if not all are laughing at the stupidity of the government for not addressing this serious problem today.
And yes, it is the dysfunctional family and the condition of the dysfunctional community that allows our children to be violent towards one another.This dysfunctioal family starts at home with LEARNED behavior of alcohol and drug abuse, domestic abuse, sexual molestations, murders, rapes, suicides and the list goes on. These are not being addressed by the students and or parents. Blaming the school or pointing the finger at the school is placing blame where blame does not belong.
It doesn’t matter how many counselours, mental health specialists and other specialists the GN hires and puts into its schools, the violence that is being perpetrated stems from external home focused issues like poverty, domestic violence, substance abuse, and child sexual and physical abuse. Nothing Minister Joanesie and his department will ever do will work until these underlying issues have been dealt with.
Even if better support in schools won’t solve the broader societal problem with violence, it can help, can’t it? I realize that if you’re going home every day after school to an unsafe home, it is hard to see how much the school can really help, except to show another model, where kids and youth are respected and supported. That has to count for something or give some hope to them,no?
I am a little disturbed that the discussion appears to not be addressing the trauma felt by kids who are mistreated in schools by violent kids. I get that these violent kids are very likely themselves traumatized and that is why they behave like that, but the problem is not just about them, it is also about their targets in schools. Both issues should be discussed.
This is a BROKEN EDUCATION SYSTEM!
The EDUCATION system in Nunavut is a BROKEN HABIT! With teacher’s filling position’s that DO NOT TEACH ENGLISH, GRAMMAR, MATHEMATIC’s, or INUKTITUT. This truly hold former student’s to pursue further EDUCATION in POST-SECONDARY that are given Grade 12 CERTIFICATION’s without ACADEMIC background.
Student’s graduating in Nunavut some still can barely know ENGLISH Grammar, or Mathematics, which is unfortunate reality while long-term TEACHER’s are on EDUCATION leave (personal interests). This is may be part of the major factor WHY Nunavut student’s cannot pursue post-secondary. Do you NOTICE the trend!?!
The reality is what taught in Education in Nunavut is NOT relevant to programs such as post-secondary institutions i.e. curriculum programs such as ENGLISH GRAMMAR, MATHEMATICS, LITERACY (how to read and write), SOCIAL STUDIES, or SCIENCE. However, below average number of students may make it to pursue career opportunities in College or University.
The issue is some teachers have TEACH in classes that is NOT relevant to students learning, and quality EDUCATION. This trend started number of years under the NOSE of Dept of EDUCATION. This is known as Sociopathy in a school environment stranded in an island, and toxic environment manipulated in school’s.