Closing The Education Gap

Closing the education gap is the most important social and economic challenge that Inuit have in the coming years. There are a few reasons for this, not the least of which is that we are now closing an era in education which was defined by residential schools.

Inuit need to shape a new era in education - one that values our Inuit knowledge and language and promotes a culture of achievement and possibility for the 21st century.

We must move past the culture of under-achievement that is typified by a recent story on discrimination towards Canadian Aboriginal teachers that contained the following comment from a teacher in an Inuit Nunangat community:

"...some teachers lower their expectations for aboriginal students. Participants in the study reported that they felt this attitude is widespread in schools across the country.

"It is a reality. There are some teachers that have that attitude towards our aboriginal students, and I find that's very wrong because we should be giving the same opportunities to any student that comes in our school doors, aboriginal or not,"

Inuit have never had national goals for Inuit education. So for the past eight months we have been working on developing a National Strategy on Inuit Education. The Strategy is expected to be completed this summer, but one thing is very clear already… the success of an Inuit education strategy hinges in large measure on engaging and mobilizing parents to support education. Our school leadership needs to promote measures to welcome parents into our schools and our parents must actively support our children with their education.

On April 13-14, 2010 the National Committee on Inuit Education will be holding its 3rd meeting in developing a national strategy for Inuit education. Since the last meeting in September 2009 the committee has completed extensive research into learning environments across Inuit Nunangat. It has presented to and heard from the first National Inuit Early Childhood Education gathering in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. ITK will be making a presentation to the committee on language issues and strategies.

The work of the National Committee on Inuit Education is addressing these core themes in education:

• graduating bilingual (Inuktitut/English or Inuktitut/French) students,
• increasing and retaining qualified teachers and staff,
• engaging and mobilizing parents in support of education,
• promoting early childhood development,
• developing Inuit centered curriculum and teaching practices,
• post-secondary education and training, and;
• collecting and sharing information to inform our decisions

By June we hope to have a draft working strategy that will be circulated among the various federal, territorial, and regional stakeholders for review and comment with a final strategy expected by September.

Inuit can and will close the educational gap between Inuit and other Canadians.

This is the appropriate way of closing the current educational gap between Inuit and other Canadians.

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