Iqaluit (Jun 05/06) - How do you explain a 75 per cent drop-out rate?

When Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Jim Prentice turned to Nunavut Education Minister Ed Picco for an answer, Picco pointed out that the education system has made strides over the past few years.

Ed Picco, Nunavut's minister of Education, stood up for the territory's education system when Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Minister Jim Prentice questioned the 75 per cent dropout rate. - Derek Neary/NNSL photo

"It is working," Picco said, recounting his conversation with Prentice in Ottawa three weeks prior to the public release of Thomas Berger's report on the state of education in the territory.

Just within the past several years, nearly every community began offering a full Grade 12 education and computers and Internet access have become available everywhere, the minister noted.

It's the socio-economic factors - crowded housing, pregnant teens and students missing too much school - that are impeding further progress, said Picco.

These issues need to be addressed, he said while delivering a message to educators at a conference in Iqaluit last week. He added that parents must get more involved in their children's education.

As it is, teachers look after Nunavut's youth from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. and then spend many additional hours volunteering for extra-curricular activities, Picco noted.

"Our teaching staff work bloody hard," he stated. "Teachers drive our communities."

One Inuk teacher, speaking on the condition of anonymity, agreed with Picco.

"He's not making excuses," she said. "The parents need to be involved. The (Inuktitut) language starts from home."

Parents will have a much better understanding of the education system if they are engaged from the outset, she suggested.

However, Nellie Kusugak, also a teacher, said Inuit parents must be given time to adapt to and help mould academic programs as sweeping cultural changes over the past few generations have had deep-rooted effects.

"Colonialism is embedded in us so much that it's hard to remove," Kusugak said, recalling that her parents' only involvement in her schooling during the 1960s was with the Christmas concert. "They (the Inuit) haven't had a voice in so long."

Change will come gradually, but "we have to work hard at it," she said.