Inuit and partners draft plan for National Strategy on Inuit Education

Ottawa, Sept. 24, 2009 National Inuit Leader Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, chaired the first meeting of the National Committee on Inuit Education (NCIE) this week, identifying a plan to create a National Strategy on Inuit Education within a year.

The goal of this strategy is to eliminate the gap in Inuit educational outcomes and to achieve educational success for Inuit comparable to all other Canadians, said Mary Simon, chair of the NCIE.

Inuit currently have the lowest graduation rates in Canada. Some 61 percent of Inuit aged 25 to 64 have not completed high school, compared with 23 percent of non-Aboriginal Canadians, according to Statistics Canada.

With this process, we aim to define the solutions ourselves. We will transform the outcomes in our schools by working collaboratively and collectively, as Inuit have always done. It is about defining what we want and imagining our future, said Mary Simon.

The work stems from a 2008 Inuit Education Summit held in Inuvik, NWT, the first national Inuit education initiative following the landmark residential school apology by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The summit identified six themes (capacity building, graduating students fluent in the Inuit language and either English or French, mobilizing partners, investing in what we teach and how we teach, building post-secondary success and collecting and sharing information), each applicable to early childhood education, K-12 instruction and post-secondary studies.

It is essential that this strategy include concrete goals for implementation in Inuit regions and everywhere Inuit live, said Kathy Okpik, Deputy Minister of the Government of Nunavut s Department of Education and a member of the NCIE. Different regions find themselves at different points in the development of education policy, so implementation procedures that allow for those differences will be key to our work.

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, communications officer
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
dsouza@itk.ca, 613/292-4482

Members of the National Committee on Inuit Education:

Mary Simon, President, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (chair)

Chris Duschenes, Executive Director, Inuit Relations Secretariat, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada

Kathy Okpik, Deputy Minister, Department of Education, Government of Nunavut

Natan Obed, Director of Social and Cultural Development, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.

George Berthe, Corporate Secretary, Makivik Corp.

Mary Joanne Kauki, Vice-President, Kativik School Board (observer)

Marian Fushell, Assistant Deputy Minister, Primary, Elementary and Secondary Education, Department of Education, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador (observer)

Tim McNeil, Deputy Minister, Department of Education and Economic Development, Nunatsiavut Government

Roy Erasmus, Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Education, Culture and Employment, Government of the Northwest Territories

Lucy Kuptana, Executive Director, Community Development Division, Inuvialuit Regional Corp.

Rhoda Innuksuk, President, Pauktuutit, Inuit Women of Canada

Jesse Mike, President, National Inuit Youth Council

Violet Ford, Vice-President, Inuit Circumpolar Council