Inuit and partners chart bold future for Inuit education

April 21, 2010 – Ottawa, Ontario – A multi-party committee of Inuit organizations and governments took meaningful steps last week in their work to create a comprehensive national strategy on Inuit education.

The National Committee on Inuit Education, which includes representatives from each of the four Inuit land claims regions, in addition to school boards in Inuit regions, national Inuit organizations, and federal, provincial and territorial governments, met April 13-15, their third session since beginning their work in September.

“This week has signaled a turning point in our year long schedule, allowing us to frame broad strategic directions for education – to dream big and outline a pragmatic plan of action to achieve those dreams,” said National Inuit Leader Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, and chair of the committee.

“Our work represents the most comprehensive collection of information on Inuit education that has ever been assembled.”

The committee is deep in the process of drafting a National Strategy on Inuit Education, a landmark policy paper and action plan to be delivered to signatories of the 2009 Inuit Education Accord later this year.

Key areas of attention include capacity building, mobilizing parents, bilingualism, collecting and sharing information, creating an Inuit-centred curriculum and building successes in post-secondary and adult education and early-childhood education (ECE).

“Early-childhood education offers the biggest opportunity for policy change,” said Simon. “It is the least developed in our continuum of lifelong learning and we have flexibility to make changes.”

The committee held in-depth discussions on a range of topics, including a national, Inuit-specific model for ECE and a national, Inuit-specific curriculum; as well as the creation of an Inuit University within the next 10 years, the establishment of a task force that would consult Inuit on how would develop and implement a standardized writing system for Inuit that would be phased in over the course of a generation, and an Inuit Centre for Education.

The development of the strategy is part of a greater transition from the era of residential schools and assimilation policies in education to an era of Inuit empowerment and determination to create an educational system that is founded upon Inuit language and culture, and that prepares Inuit to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

For more information:
Patricia D’Souza
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
613/292-4482; dsouza@itk.ca