Failing grade for teacher recruitment
Multiple barriers stand in the way for education students: report authors
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Monday, April 3, 2017
NUNAVUT
Are there enough potential Inuit teachers to fill the 300-plus gap to satisfy the Nunavut Education Act's requirement for a bilingual education with an Inuit language and French or English?
Rebecca Jones, seen here in Iceland, where she presented preliminary findings for 'A Hunger to Teach' with then-fellow Nunavut Teacher Education Program students Jennifer Kadjuk, Karen Inootik, and education researcher Paul Berger in 2012. - photo courtesy of Paul Berger
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Education Minister Paul Quassa doesn't seem to think so.
"I think it (the Act) had very good intentions," Quassa stated to national media March 29 in his continued defense of Bill 37, which contains a decade-long deferral of the Act's dates regarding bilingual education.
"But at the end of the day, we cannot force our population to become teachers."
Yet, according to research conducted in 2011, there are plenty of high school students interested in teaching.
"The large number of Inuit youth who see teaching as a possible career suggests that the critical shortage of Inuit teachers can be addressed," state the authors of A Hunger to Teach: Recruiting Inuit Teachers in Nunavut.
Paul Berger, a former Nunavut teacher and education researcher who spearheaded a critical open letter -signed by 16 educators -about Bill 37, teamed up with then-Nunavut Teacher Education Program (NTEP) students Jennifer Kadjuk, Karen Inootik and Rebecca Jones.
They surveyed 128 youth attending high schools across the territory - in Iqaluit, Pangnirtung, Pond Inlet, Coral Harbour, Rankin Inlet, Cambridge Bay, Gjoa Haven, Clyde River, Naujaat, Taloyoak and Kugaruuk - focusing on recruitment, barriers, and awareness of teacher training in Nunavut.
The written report was released in early March as Bill 37 was tabled in the legislative assembly, though the team presented their results at the seventh International Congress on Arctic Social Sciences in 2011 in Akureyri, Iceland, the 18th Inuit Studies Conference in Washington, DC in 2012, and at the Nunavut Research Institute in 2013.
Jones says the results were not surprising.
"They're things I experienced myself. And because you know everybody, each other's struggles, the results were kind of expected," she told Nunavut News/North.
More than half of all participants - 58 per cent - said they had, at some time, thought of becoming a teacher, and 39 per cent that they had considered applying to NTEP, according to the report.
To put those numbers in perspective, in spring 2016 there were 247 students who graduated from high school across the territory.
Jones and her fellow researchers found that language was a critical barrier.
"'Once you hit high school, there's no more talk in Inuktitut, nobody talks it anymore,' said one participant. Though most participants did not explicitly name language as a barrier, its salience was clear. The current model of 'early exit' from Inuktut instruction impairs students' learning and their ability to develop language competency. This becomes a barrier to post-secondary education. As schooling erodes Inuktut, new Inuit teachers may be less capable of teaching in Inuktut, creating a dangerous circle," they write.
Yet, many of the participants indicated they were interested in teaching in the higher grades.
"When asked what they would like to teach if they did become a teacher, almost half said Grade 7 or above - grades that NTEP does not prepare people to teach. We asked what subject participants would most like to teach if they were teaching at a high school level, mathematics and Inuktitut were most popular, then English, social studies, science and physical education," states the report.
"These are not currently options at NTEP. NTEP needs to be expanded. Qalattuq (a detailed 2006 plan which Nunavut News/North cited last week) called for expansion into the intermediate grades and a mechanism to qualify teachers for those grades in fact exists but has never been used. The goal of having an Inuit education system is possible to achieve, but not without a majority of Inuit teachers at all levels."
The researchers also found academic barriers - participants thought they might not cut it in the program - in addition to financial, family- and housing-related barriers.
Jones quit the NTEP program. As a young mother with three children, she found the program inflexible. While experiencing personal hardship, she temporarily dropped down to a part-time course load, which led to her losing her assigned student housing.
"When we came back from presenting our research in Iceland, I came home to a message that I needed to be out of my student housing now. They have a policy that you need to be a full-time student in order to keep your student housing," she said.
"Because I wasn't from Iqaluit, I didn't have my own place, I decided, because I have three kids, I can't just be homeless, I'll try to find a job instead that will give me housing. Even though I was only going to be a part-time student for one term they had to kick me out, basically.
"At least at a southern institution there's wiggle room. You can have the option of a night class or make-up exams. They don't have any of that at Arctic College."
Jones also makes the point her situation is not unique, as many young women have children.
"Unfortunately, that's the reality. Until they fix that (the housing crisis) or have more flexibility for their program, because the majority of students are parents ..."
Had NTEP been offered in her community of Coral Harbour, where Jones had a home and support, she might be in a classroom teaching today. Instead she lives in Gatineau and works in Ottawa as the women's services violence prevention coordinator for the Inuit Children's Centre.
"People from smaller communities tend to have this fear of moving away ... because of the housing shortage, you have no choice but to give up your housing unit. If you want to further your education, you have to give up your home in your community and go live in very temporary student housing. There's no guarantee of having a house when you get out of the program. And that's a scary thought, right?
"You make a choice. You further your education and become homeless or you stay in your home and stay uneducated."
Currently NTEP is offered as follows: Years 1 through 4 in Iqaluit, Year 1 in Kugaaruk, Year 2 in Clyde River, Pond Inlet and Sanikiluaq, Year 3 in Taloyoak, and Year 4 in Arviat and Rankin Inlet.
Jones also said, "Living costs are extremely high. Unless you have a spouse that's working, it's very hard to make it."
The report recommends expanding NTEP to more communities, increasing financial support and developing different models of delivery to get teachers in the classroom. It also calls for prioritizing the building of an Inuit language and culture education system, which requires Inuit-focused curriculum and major investments to support Inuktut. Further, it offers suggestions to raise awareness and recruit.
Jones hopes the GN learns from the report.
"It's nothing new. The information was already there. But the fact that it's on paper and that we visited so many different communities and they said the same things, I really hope they look at that and try to change the program a bit and offer it in different places. And offer more support for the students."
Berger finds Bill 37 troubling.
"It could be argued that there is no choice, given the lack of Inuit teachers - but without a plan, and spending commitment, to move towards having the necessary teachers, we can predict that six or eight years from now the date will be postponed again, or quietly dropped altogether," he said.
