IGLULIK - The lack of a daycare facility in Iglulik is resulting in a high employee turnover rate and an inability for some students to attend school, according to a former resident of the community.

Jennifer McLaren said the lack of a daycare facility was one of the primary reasons she and her family left Iglulik.

"That was the largest reason," she said. "There were several reasons, but one of the largest ones was there was no daycare."

She and her husband both worked as teachers at the elementary school in Iglulik for three years and she said they would have stayed in the community longer if there were daycare facilities available.

"We would have liked to renew our contracts and stay," she said.

McLaren said she and other community members applied for funding from various organizations to start a daycare, including the Department of Education, which is responsible for funding daycare operations in Nunavut.

She said the department couldn't provide funding because it only funds existing daycare facilities.

"The Department of Education says they don't have money for building daycares. It only has money for maintaining or operating," she said.

Leslie Leafloor, early childhood development manager at the Department of Education, said many daycares currently operating in Nunavut received funding from Kakivak under the First Nations and Inuit Child Care Initiative to purchase buildings, but that money has since been depleted.

McLaren said a contractor in Iglulik purchased a building to sell back to the group for the daycare to use, but renovations would have cost more than $300,000.

"He had the plans drawn up and budget drawn up, and for the building to be renovated to code it would be $340,000 approximately," she said.

Leafloor said the department provides funding for operating costs such as buying toys and equipment and hooking up telephone and electricity service, but only provides $5,000 for renovations.

"They can use a small portion of that money, but it's only up to $5,000 for renovations and a lot of times those renovations are things that are required, such as putting in smoke detectors in the sleeping rooms and those types of things," she said. "So the $4,000 or $5,000 certainly wouldn't cover any major renovations, that's for sure."

McLaren said community members in the Ajagutaq Daycare Society have been fundraising for years to try to raise money for a building.

"It seems like what we're left with is fundraising and they've got about $45,000 in fundraising that's taken place over two years time," she said.

"You can do the math and figure out how long it's going to take before we get a daycare building."

Twenty-two year old Tasha Tulugajuk said she had to stop going to high school when her baby was born four years ago "to raise my child."

She is back in school now and said she has heard that a daycare facility is in the works.

Leafloor said the department will continue to assist Iglulik in establishing a daycare.

"We have been working with the community for over 10 years to try and get a facility there," she said.

"We will continue to support the community in trying to find a location and getting a daycare open."