Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Dec 07/98) - For a place as culturally distinct as the North, education must strike a fine balance between the needs of the Northern students and the requirements of southern universities and colleges.

With division, Nunavut and the Western Arctic set off on separate paths, both aimed at finding that balance.

Both the Western and Eastern territories currently use a curriculum developed by the Alberta government.

For students preparing to pursue post-secondary education in the south, a southern-based curriculum is critical. It is not as important to those who do not continue their schooling in the south, who plan to stay in their communities.

The territorial government has opted into the Western Canadian Protocol, an initiative to standardize curricula used in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, B.C., Yukon and Northern schools.

Nunavut has not opted into the protocol. In fact, at a youth and elders conference held two weeks ago in Cambridge Bay, youth called for a curriculum that Nunavut can call its own, one that includes more Inuktitut and Inuktitut-speaking teachers for Nunavut schools.

Custom curriculum

At the conclusion of a half-day discussion of education at the youth and elders conference, Peter Ernerk, Nunavut's deputy minister of the department of culture, language, youth and elders, said the new Eastern territory will be developing its own curriculum, from Kindergarten to Grade 12.

Nunavut's deputy minister of education, Robert Moody, said that's the long-term goal, but added it's not a goal that will be reached anytime soon.

"Nothing dramatic, nothing immediate, but very definitely we will be introducing more Inuktitut and making the curriculum more culturally sensitive to who we are here in Nunavut," said Moody.

He estimated it will take the next year or two to develop a curriculum development plan.

Baffin regional education consultant Stephen Parks said the choice of whether or not to get involved in the Western Canadian Protocol is one of the big decisions government and department heads will have to wrestle with.

But, Parks added, educators and administrators in the Baffin are doing what they can to make Northern education for Northerners.

"We have a number of strategies right now where we are adapting the Alberta curriculum ... to make it more culturally relevant," said Parks.

Room to manoeuvre

Parks said he is now working on two science modules designed to make the course more culturally relevant.

Baffin students enroling in the new modules will examine traditional Inuit tools and caribou anatomy to learn scientific principles.

In a couple of years, said Parks, students will have the opportunity to enrol in a social studies course called the History of Nunavut.

"The curriculum defines the skills and knowledge a student must have when he or she completes a course," noted Mark Cleveland, deputy minister of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment for the territorial government.

"That doesn't prevent adjusting the program to make it more culturally relevant. You can teach subjects in many ways."

Cleveland offered, as an example, mathematics lessons relying on Northern scenarios, such as the rates of flow of a river near the community and calculations of fuel consumption and snowmobile travel.

The cultural differences may figure into the approach Northern teachers take to education, but they do not figure into the ultimate test of the effectiveness of their efforts. Northern students still write the same exams as their Alberta counterparts.