INUVIK - This month in Inuvik you'll rarely catch Roy Cole sitting behind his desk pushing paperwork around and analyzing statistics - he's headed to the front lines.

Parents should get the tea, toast and Cheez Whiz ready; the Beaufort Delta Education Council superintendent is knocking on doors in Inuvik to meet with families face-to-face.

His goal is to work with these families to raise the education level of students in the North, particularly those of aboriginal students.

"The aboriginal student is as bright as, and in many cases brighter than the non-aboriginal student, but there are other factors," Cole said in a presentation he gave to town council on Monday, March 7.

"Fifty-five per cent of aboriginal students in Grade 3 in the Northwest Territories are achieving an acceptable standard in English language arts compared to 85 per cent of non-aboriginal students," Cole explained, going on to say that by the time the students reach Grade 9 the percentage drops to 33 per cent in aboriginal students but only 81 per cent in non-aboriginal.

The main reason for this, Cole said, is attendance.

"This is the message I'm trying to get (to) parents and students and community leaders," Cole said passionately, "our biggest issue in our schools is student attendance, and you know full well if the students aren't in attendance then they're not going to be achieving."

Cole said it is estimated that the average aboriginal student in the Northwest Territories misses 41 days of school each year.

"This means by the end of Grade 9 these students have missed two years of schooling," Cole said. "If you were going to miss two years of school, you can't expect a student then to go onto Grade 10 and be successful."

Cole stressed that this is about closing the gap between aboriginal and non-aboriginal students and that this has nothing to do with intelligence. He spoke to the room with feeling as he went over the statistics of attendance in students in our community.

He went on to say that the worst attendance is in kindergarten, followed by Grade 1.

"It's the very, very foundation of everything," Cole stressed, "kindergarten, Grade 1, is as important as Grade 12."

And Cole said it's not just full days missed.

"Another problem that we have in our schools, and we have it here in Inuvik, is students turning up late," Cole said.

If a student missed 20 minutes in the morning and another 20 in the afternoon, which Cole says is quite common, and by the time that student finishes Grade 9 they have missed another year of school just through tardiness.

Cole said this means that many students have already missed three years of schooling before they've even reached Grade 10.

"Then we expect to put them in Grade 10 and expect them to do well, it doesn't make sense."

So Cole will be visiting homes to try and keep kids in school.

"I'm going to walk into homes and I'm going to sit down at the kitchen table and I'm going to talk about attendance, and I'm going to talk about achievement," he said.

Cole wants to see Northerners going off to post-secondary schools and be successful.

Councillor Terry Halifax made a point of thanking Cole for speaking to council and for making the effort to go visit families.

"I appreciate that he's going out into the communities," Halifax said, "there's only so much that teachers can do."

Cole said Inuvik's two schools have resources incomparable to southern schools. He added that none of the schools in the Beaufort Delta are understaffed and Inuvik has the highest level of trained substitute teachers in the region.

"But if they're not there, they can't learn," Cole said, "we can only teach them when they're there. We need to educate our people."

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.