Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Baker Lake (Oct 16/00) - The number of students struggling academically in the Kivalliq Region has to be lowered, says the executive director of Kivalliq School Services.

Chris Purse says The issue was raised during a recent regional principal's meeting in Baker Lake and is a top priority of his department.

Purse says a focus is being aimed at what can be done to help the large number of students who seem to be having problems with the education system the way it is now.

He says many of these Kivalliq students are in desperate need of intensive remedial effort.

""We've been looking at different programs and discussing some of the strategies that are being used in the various communities," says Purse.

"The Leo Ussak elementary school in Rankin Inlet, for example, has been doing a lot of language instruction within their curriculum so that the students can be grouped by ability and the work concentrated accordingly."

Purse says both Jonah Amitnaaq secondary and Rachel Arngnammaktiq elementary schools in Baker Lake have brought in a number of new resources and have conducted specialized training in how to use those resources.

He says last year, the outgoing council in Baker Lake provided a grant for its schools to get library books.

Local students are still waiting for some of the books to arrive, but the schools have had books coming in which they can access.

Purse says the common goal of schools in the region is to try and improve the reading, and reading comprehension..

"The schools are trying their own various projects based on their abilities to incorporate them and are reporting back as time goes by, so we don't have any concrete results at the moment."