Iqaluit (Aug 21/06) - Nunavut's district education authorities united last week in their push for more community control over schools.

"We need to have more say of what the local people want, instead of the minister and bureaucrats telling us what to do," said Jeeteeta Merkosak, chair of Pond Inlet's DEA and the first chair of the newly-formed Coalition of Nunavut District Education Authorities.

Manitok Thompson, legislative specialist for the department of education, prepares to chair a meeting of District Education Authorities in Iqaluit. The three-day meeting sought to determine how much power the authorities will have under a new Education Act, due in November. - Chris Windeyer/NNSL photo

Educators from across Nunavut have fewer than three months to help finalize a new Education Act for the territory, so some are wondering why Education Minister Ed Picco skipped out on a meeting to discuss the role District Education Authorities will have under the new regime.

Merkosak said Picco, plus representatives from the Qikiqtani Inuit Association and Nunavut Tunngavik, should have been at the meetings.

"It's the minister that should wake up," said John Illupalik, vice-chair of Iglulik's DEA, through translation.

Illupalik wondered aloud where Picco and NTI president Paul Kaludjak were for the start of a meeting of DEAs from across Nunavut in Iqaluit last week and why their only direction was to "drop the bill by November." A spokeswoman said Picco was travelling outside the territory.

"While they're sleeping, let's get the authorities, the powers," Illupalik said.

How much power education authorities will have under the new act is a key question, and stakes are high said Manitok Thompson, the Education Department's legislative specialist.

"No piece of legislation is as important to the lives of most of our people as the Education Act," she said.

The new act is also key to enacting elements of the Berger Report, which called for an expansion of Inuktitut language education. But preservation of Inuktitut is up to individual educators as well as the law, said David Kunuk, NTI's director of implementation.

Kunuk cited the case of Alaska's Inupiat, who signed a land claim agreement in the 1970s and still saw use of their language decline over the following decades.

"We all have to chip in by using the language," he said. "Thirty years is not a long time to lose a dialect. If we're not careful we can lose our language in less than 30 years."

Merkosak said the coalition's next step is to request funding from local DEAs and seek a meeting with Picco.