National Committee on Inuit Education
Submitted by Mary Simon on Thursday, September 24, 2009
In April of this year I, Minister Chuck Strahl, and several Inuit groups and organizations signed the Inuit Education Accord. It is a multi-party agreement to establish a National Committee on Inuit Education with the goal of developing a National Strategy on Inuit Education by September 2010. The parties to the agreement are Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC), Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI), Makivik Corporation, Nunatsiavut Government, Government of Nunavut, Government of the Northwest Territories, Pauktuutit Inuit Women’s Association, National Inuit Youth Council (NIYC), Inuit Circumpolar Council (Canada), and the Government of Canada.
The strategy will address issues such as:
- creating a bilingual (Inuktitut/English or Inuktitut/French) education system
- developing an Inuit-centered curriculum
- capacity building
- mobilizing parents, and
- recognizing best practices in education in each of the four Inuit regions.
Canada has never had national goals for Inuit education that unite the four Inuit regions in a common purpose, so the challenges before us are great. For example, current statistics show that 51% of Inuit between the ages of 25 and 54 do not have a high school graduation diploma verses 85% of non-Aboriginal Canadians who do.
On Wednesday and Thursday this week the members of the committee held their first meeting in our offices to meet those challenges, and in doing so began the development of Inuit specific strategies to eliminate the current education gap between Inuit and non-Aboriginal Canadians.
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Inuit-Centered Cirriculum
Hello Mrs. Simon,
I understand the importance of adapting the formal cirriculum of the North to reflect the cultural aspects of the community; however, I do not understand what is meant by "Inuit-centered" cirriculum. Is that a cirriculum that is taught by Inuit teachers? Is it the teaching of cultural 'survival' skills to the students? More abstract, will the cirriculum help to socialize the students to the values of Southern Canadian society or Inuit society (or are they the same values)?
Also, one of the goals of the National Committe on Inuit Education was to create an education that would 'unite' the four Inuit regions. Is it correct to interpret this as one cirriculum for the four territories or are there to be four seperate cirriculums which teach students aspects of commonality between the four Inuit regions as well as their distinct differences?
I know so little about Inuit culture and education, but would love to learn more. Thank you so much for your response to my questions.
Yours Truly,
Charissa
McGill Canadian Studies Student
Thanks for your comment
Thanks for both your comment and your interest Charissa.
An Inuit centered curriculum is one that is developed by Inuit, for Inuit, that is relevant (culturally and otherwise) to Inuit. Much of the current curriculum, and associated text books, come from the south. For example Nunavut uses the Alberta curriculum. So you will find elementary school math problems explained using ants and ant hills – there are none of either in many places in the Arctic. This type of material is simply not relevant in many cases.
With respect to curriculum for different regions, the National Committee on Inuit Education will not actually be creating a curriculum. We will develop a strategy or framework, for creating an Inuit centered curriculum that can be used in each of the four regions. It needs to be remembered that K-12 education is a provincial/territorial responsibility so the individual curriculums developed resulting from the strategy we are working on will have to take that into consideration.
If you would like more information it can be found in here the publications section of our website.