Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services
Inuvik (Jun 18/01) - The Beaufort Delta Education Council is introducing a new program to boost literacy skills.
In Chief Julius School in Fort McPherson it was found that 90 per cent are functioning in language arts at a decreased ability. There were similar poor-scoring patterns throughout all schools in the region.
"We are not happy about that and doing our best to change it," said principal Chris Wright.
Starting next term the education council will make more teachers available to Kindergarten and Grade 1 students.
Director of education John Anderson said teachers in the region will increase to 117 from 109 and no kindergarten or Grade 1 class will be larger than 15 students.
"We think it will have the greatest impact on learning at that age," he said. "Our objective is to have every student reading and writing at their grade level by the end of Grade 2."
Beaufort-Delta schools use standardized testing every year, ranking its kids with all others in Canada through the School Achievement Indication Program and Canadian Achievement Tests.
Although students from this region have made average and above average scores, they are significantly "over-represented at the lower levels." Anderson said.
In order to get those scores up money has been found within the council to hire the extra lower grade teachers.
Why kids in the Beaufort Delta region are learning at a lesser level than others was a difficult question for Anderson to answer but he listed a number of possibilities.
Socioeconomic plays a large part, he said, as well as the lifestyle, employment and education levels of parents and reading material in the home.
