Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Wednesday, March 28, 2007

RANKIN INLET - Nunavut Arctic College's Kivalliq campus in Rankin Inlet graduated its third Community Aerodrome Radio Station Communicator-Observer class earlier this month.

The students had a tough act to follow with the previous class reaching a 100 per cent graduation rate.

Although they didn't match that rate, the class had a more-than-respectable showing with six of nine participants passing the course.

Course instructor Bill Taylor said the graduating students hail from Baker Lake, Repulse Bay and Resolute.

He said a big reason why three students didn't make it was that they didn't have the necessary academic tools.

"Two of the three worked very, very hard, but, unfortunately, they didn't have the math background and comprehension to succeed," said Taylor.

"We lucked out with the previous course because all eight students had the basic knowledge required to pass the program.

"Students on this course need to be able to comprehend and use integers and fractions.

"It has nothing to do with their overall intelligence and everything to do with their ability to use these specific tools in the program."

Taylor said two of the six grads had to work especially hard because English is their second language, but they made it through.

He said it can be tough for smaller communities to find suitable candidates on an ongoing basis.

"Eventually, we hope to see enough people coming out of high school with the necessary math tools to complete this course, and a desire to stay in their home community."

Nunavut has about 70 observer-communicators in 22 communities.

The Kivalliq has six in Baker and Coral Harbour, three in Whale Cove and Repulse, and two in Arviat and Chesterfield Inlet.

Taylor said the goal is to reach the point where there are enough observer-communicators to ensure the number of hours at any given station are never reduced.

"We have six 24-hour stations in Nunavut, including Baker and Coral, that all need a minimum of five operators.

"At the part-time sites, the ideal situation would be to have two full-time operators and one spare.

"We're proud of what we've accomplished in Rankin by graduating 17 of the 23 students who started the course during the past year.

"That represents about a 40 per cent improvement rate in the number of graduates since the program relocated to Rankin from the NWT."