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    Teachers in training

    Karen Mackenzie
    Northern News Services
    Published Wednesday, September 3, 2008

    RANKIN INLET - As many as nine new teachers-to-be from the Kivalliq region are set to begin their studies in Rankin Inlet this week.

    NNSL Photo/Graphic

    Rankin Inlet NTEP teacher Mike Pickles sits in the empty classroom at Maani Ulujuk high school which will soon house a continuous course to train Nunavut teachers. - Karen Mackenzie/NNSL photo

    With the Nunavut Teacher Education Program running simultaneously in Cambridge Bay and Iqaluit this year, the intention is to keep training teachers in regional bases from now on, according to Ooloota Maatiusi, principal of NTEP.

    "It is a very positive move," she said. "The big thing is not too many people want to leave their region. It's too far and too long to be away from their family."

    NTEP grad Gloria Kowtuk said she remembers very well the difficulties of leaving home for school.

    Originally from Whale Cove, Kowtuk made her first move as a teenager when she headed to Rankin Inlet for high school.

    Though she came to make her home there, she had to head to Iqaluit when she decided to pursue a career in teaching. And with a three-month-old son in tow, there were many ups and downs in the first couple years.

    "It was hard but because of a supportive partner I was able to complete it," she said.

    Despite the road bumps and homesickness, Kowtuk said she was happy to have learned from the experience. "I really grew up as a person, I became more developed more responsible and not as shy as I used to be - more open, more out there," she said.

    Like Kowtuk, NTEP grad and Leo Ussak teacher Adriana Kusugak sees both benefits and drawbacks to attending school in one's home community.

    "I had a really good time in Iqaluit and I got to meet and learn from a lot of students from other regions," she said. "But I'm really happy that the program has been decentralized to other communities too. It just shows that post secondary is available. There's no excuse not to take it. If you can get more Inuktitut speakers, it's worth it ... and if kids see people going to college they start seeing it as a way of life and it becomes normal."

    Nunavut-based teacher education programs have been around for nearly 30 years beginning with the Eastern Arctic Education Program in the late 1960s.

    By the mid-1990s it was re-named to reflect the new territory and grew to a three-year diploma.

    In 2003, a foundation year was added for academic upgrading. Now, it takes a total of five years to complete, counting the upgrading year.

    While the program has produced an estimated 250 graduates, the first generation is beginning to retire, according to Maatiusi.

    "We're having to replace all the teachers who have gone to take other GN jobs and all the Inuit teachers who are retiring," she said. "The earlier ones, the ones who have been teaching since the '70s, are leaving. Right now we're trying hard to fill the K to 6 with Inuit teachers."

    Mike Pickles, former principal of Victor Sammurtok School in Chesterfield Inlet, will be teaching the class in Rankin this year.

    He said he hopes to teach not only theory but the practical experience of being a teacher in the North, with an emphasis also on work skills like punctuality and attendance.

    Pickles will rotate in and out of the community as some of the courses will be taught in Inuktitut by other cultural teachers.